


and i love that here you live with me

by tremontaine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Curtain Fic, Dirty Talk, Fluff and Smut, Multi, OT3, Pegging, Rimming, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:33:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tremontaine/pseuds/tremontaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky Barnes works through his feelings about his new house with interior decorating, furniture shopping, and sex. But mostly with sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i love that here you live with me

**Author's Note:**

> So this started off as an excuse to write porn, and then it turned into 25k words on Bucky Barnes' feelings about being normal again, and now I don't know what it is. I have neither excuses nor a plot. *shrug*

 

 

Bucky fell in love with the house the first time he laid eyes on it. It was a towering brownstone with three floors, an attic, a back yard, a huge kitchen in the back, and bay windows everywhere; there was an oak tree overhanging the ill-kept patio, and a gorgeous fireplace in the living room. Downstairs Steve and Natasha were talking to the realtor, and the old floorboards creaked under his feet as he wandered from room to room. Some of the floor would need replacing; the wiring was probably pretty shit; he wouldn’t trust the plumbing if his life depended on it, not yet. Everything needed a coat of paint, and there were so many rooms he wasn’t sure what they would even do with them all, narrow and small as several of them were, especially upstairs. The servants’ rooms, once, the kind of rooms he or his sisters might so easily have lived their lives in, if the store had been a little less successful, their parents a little less ambitious for them.

Yet he loved the house. It was older than he was, which was a good start, and the bones of it were solid under several years of neglect. It had been graceful once, imposing, all light and beauty and careful good taste.

Careful good taste was not a thing they specialised in, he and Steve. Natasha had bucketloads of it, but only because it had been beaten into her; what she liked was kitsch and cosiness and a lived-in mess, like the Barton place. Bucky sat down on the steps to the second floor, watching the dust motes in the sunbeam a few feet away. It was a beautiful house. And, in a twist which exceeded all his expectations, the master bedroom had a fireplace too. Imagine winter this year: freezing and wet as New York winters were, the snow piling up the steps to the front door, the wind banging against the windowpanes, and being able to draw all the curtains, lock the front door, shut it out completely. Dim lights and rugs and candles, build a fire in that big grate and lay Natasha down in front of it, watch her smile in the warm light, the sweet sensual way she moved against him; hold Steve close and kiss the memory of drowning from his skin.

He went back downstairs. The realtor was on the phone in the dining room. Steve was standing in front of the grate in the living room; Natasha was kneeling on the window-seat, looking out at the street.

“I want it,” Bucky announced. He surprised himself a little with how easily the words came to his lips. I want it. I want this house. I want to spend the rest of my life with you two, in this house.

“Oh good,” said Steve, looking relieved, and Bucky knew he’d been worrying that Bucky wouldn’t like it, because that was the kind of idiot he was.

“It’ll need a lot of work,” Natasha said quietly.

They both looked at her. She didn’t turn around to face them.

“If you don’t like it…” Bucky said, but even as he began she shook her head.

“I. I do like it.”

Steve glanced at Bucky sharply, but Bucky didn’t know what to say either. He loved her so much, and he had hurt her so badly already.

She drew a breath, loud in the quiet room, and stood up straight.

“I want it.”

+++

The whole thing obviously puzzled Sam immensely. “What d’you want with all this space?” he demanded. “It’s a waste of perfectly good back pay.” And fixed a slightly judgemental eye on Steve, who, having grown up sharing a two-room apartment with his mother and his bathroom with the entire floor of the tenement building all his life, _deserved_ space. Bucky was slightly annoyed. He loved Sam like he loved Dum Dum and Jim and the others, but if he didn’t kill this conversation soon the kid would undo all Bucky’s careful work – 

But then again, once Steve made up his mind about a thing only Aunt Sarah could ever oust him. “I like space,” he said earnestly, and assumed a faintly tragic, soulful look. Instantly Sam’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, because he wasn’t an idiot. “I like big rooms and central heating and three bathrooms all to myself. And a huge kitchen. And a yard.”

Sam shot a look at Bucky that was meant as an appeal to common sense, but Bucky had never been the sensible one before and was not, at his time of life, in the mood to start now.

“Three cramped floors above my father’s grocery shop and shared a room with at least one sister right up till I hit puberty,” he said, struggling to keep a straight face.

Sam opened his mouth again, but Natasha put another beer in front of him and said, “My earliest memory before the red rooms is a fifty-bed dorm in a Stalingrad orphanage where the windows were always left open because it was _healthy_. Come December, I used to wake up with snow on my blankets every morning. That lasted till May the next year.”

Bucky knew for a fact that this was a shameless, filthy lie, but it shut Sam up quite thoroughly, and while Bucky was sure a little piece of his thrifty, sensible Protestant soul shrivelled up with pain inside when he thought about how much they must have paid for the house, he never said anything about it, bless him.

+++

By contrast Bucky’s entire family was delighted for them. He wasn’t sure if it was weird or not that none of them remarked on either the size of the house or the probable cost. His sisters, each of them sharp and clever in their own ways, had done well for themselves and for their kids, carrying on in the trajectory their parents had set: honest, hardworking, determined, ambitious for their children. Bucky got the impression things had been tight in his nieces’ childhoods sometimes, but that this was rarely remembered. Were the Barneses – horribile dictu – middle class?

Upper middle, beyond a doubt. He tried not think about this too much. At first the back pay had been a – a happy windfall – something that meant that even if his mind _was_ fraying at the edges he didn’t need to worry about where his next meal might come from. In a more stable mood he might have thought of it, more bitterly, as government hush money. Either way, it had not really registered with him as something that could, potentially, change the way he lived his life.

It was certainly changing it now. Bucky rather thought he owed Fury a thank you note.

+++

“I guess I always thought if you decided to go permanent” – the twist to Fury’s mouth showed what he thought of that, amused and wry and exasperated all at once – “you’d stay closer to Clint and Laura.”

“Oh!” Natasha laughed. “I like New York.” She got a thoughtful little smile. “It makes me feel alive.”

“Poetic,” said Nick.

Natasha dipped her head, the measured little micro-expression of amusement that she used when they were in company. “Besides, you couldn’t make those two live further inland than Hoboken. They think nature starts at the New Jersey Turnpike, and they’re inherently suspicious of it.”

“That’s libellous,” said Bucky to Steve, who was trying to catch the bartender’s eye.

“Yeah,” he said absently. “Stop eavesdropping.”

“I ain’t!” said Bucky, so offended his accent came out with a vengeance. “Can I help it if I can hear Tasha’s heartbeat from here?”

“Is that romantic or creepy?” Steve wondered.

Bucky decided to ignore him. Back at the table, Fury was chuckling; but then he said, “It’s – sudden.”

Natasha propped her chin on her hand. “It’s not.” Her voice was rich with suppressed amusement. Bucky wasn’t sure Fury could hear it.

Fury said, “Uh-huh. Last I looked, you’d known Barnes, what, less than two years?”

She hadn’t told him about their history? That was new. And none of Bucky’s damn business however you looked at it. Bucky propped himself more comfortably against the bar and looked at Steve, wishing he could turn his enhanced senses off for once; Steve caught his eye and looked rueful, clearly knowing exactly how he felt.

Natasha said, still amused, “In a manner of speaking.”

“In a manner of speaking?” Fury was incredulous. “And now you just – “

“It’s sweet of you to worry, Nick,” said Natasha, a definite bite in her voice now. “But I’m not going back on this. I’m having too much fun. And too much frankly ex-cel-lent sex…” her tone sliding to sultry, and Steve choked on his new beer. Bucky paid the bartender and hoped to god he wasn’t blushing.

“They can hear us from over there, can’t they,” said Nick gloomily, and Natasha started laughing.

+++

“Since when do you know anything about home improvement?” Barton demanded suspiciously when Bucky told him they were going to fix the house up themselves after the move.

“I don’t,” Bucky said cheerfully. “Was a time I didn’t know much about shootin’ people either.”

Barton’s sigh crackled down the phone line. “You’re killing me here.”

“So you’ll come?” said Bucky.

“And play Professor of DIY to Captain America, the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow?” said Barton. “Sure, why not.” He snorted. “What about –“

“The kids can camp in the living room, they’ll love it,” said Bucky.

Barton was silent for a moment. “You’ve thought this through.”

“I might not be a tactician to match Steve, but I know how to lay a trap,” said Bucky, amused. “F’rinstance, I’ve already told Nat you’re coming.”

“Sonofabitch,” Barton said fondly.

+++

They moved into the house one blustery day in the middle of April. For the first time in months Natasha had spent the night at her own place, promising to meet them at the house by noon. Sam knew a guy who knew a dude who could help out with some stuff, and had arrived in the early morning at their apartment with a moving van ready to go; the three of them spent two hours carrying boxes and disassembled furniture down the stairs and then went for breakfast.

Bucky was the last to leave the apartment. Emptied of their possessions, it looked a lot bigger than it was… in a way, this had been the first safe place he had known in seventy years. He’d fallen in love with his best friend in this apartment; he and Natasha had found their way back to each other here.

Time for something better. He grinned to himself, feeling triumphant, and went to lock the door and take the keys to the landlord.

+++

When they got to the house Natasha was sitting on the front steps, reading, with a duffle between her feet. The Corvette was parked out front. She was wearing tight black jeans and a sweater Bucky was fairly sure had been liberated from Steve’s wardrobe; she’d pulled the hood up against the wind, and she disappeared in it. When he came around the cab of the truck she stuck her finger in the book to mark her place and pushed the hood back, grinning.

“New house, new hair?” He stopped at the foot of the stairs, taking it in. You could never be sure what shade of red was Natasha’s natural colour; this one was deep and rich and bordered on brown, with lighter streaks here and there. She had cut all her curls off and shaved it into an undercut; it suited her immensely. “You look fantastic.”

One-sided smile. “I always look fantastic.” She bit her lip. “Ready?”

Bucky put his hands in his pockets, sighing, and looked up at the house. Ivy climbed the walls and hung over the bay window to the living room; that could stay. No one needed to see inside too easily. Drapes, they needed drapes. The apartment had had blinds, but houses needed curtains.

“Yes,” he said. “You?”

She looked away. “Waiting to wake up.”

“You’re not gonna,” he promised after a moment. “Not this time.” She wouldn’t let him if he tried to take her in his arms, not here in public.

“Not which time?” said Steve, coming up behind him. “Nat, you look amazing.” Natasha changed her hair so often that most people had given up mentioning it, but if Steve complimented it her face would soften and her mouth would curl, minutely. Steve was squinting a bit against the sunshine and the wind, hands on his hips, grinning up at their house.

Their house.

“Hey, Nat.” Sam bumped Steve’s shoulder with his own companionably. “Afraid to go in?”

“Kind of,” Steve admitted. Sometimes he said things to Sam that neither Bucky nor Natasha could have pried out of him with a crowbar; it was cute. “Did we really do this?”

“I told you you were crazy,” said Sam. “Nat, you move your stuff in already?”

“There’s nothing to move,” said Natasha calmly. “Just me. And the Corvette.”

Sam stared. “You threw it all out?”

“Well, donated.”

“But how come?”

“Why not?” She was laughing. “New house, new hair, new start.”

“Man,” said Sam, and shook his head in mock despair.

+++

It didn’t take long to move the furniture in. Mostly they hauled it through the door and into the right room and left it, haphazard, in a likely-looking spot; soon you couldn’t turn around in the living room without tripping over a cardboard box. The comfortable, familiar things from the old apartment looked small and out of place and untidy in these bigger rooms, but everyone was distracted by the enormous list of things they still needed to do: fixing up the kitchen and the bathrooms took priority, for a start. Besides, they would probably end up replacing all the furniture, Bucky had thought that from the first time he looked at the house. The dining room needed a long heavy oak table and six chairs – maybe eight. The living room needed bookshelves, two couches, a pile of cushions in the window-seat…

“The wallpaper needs to go,” Natasha said.

“I don’t like the carpet in the dining room,” said Steve.

“No carpets,” Bucky said, remembering his mother’s yearly spring cleaning with a shudder. “Wood floor everywhere, easier to keep clean.”

Steve nodded judiciously. Natasha said, “Agreed, but not in the kitchen. Tiles in the kitchen. More durable.”

“Shall I just leave you kids to it?” said Sam affectionately.

+++

Hours later Steve was wandering the house distractedly, upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. Bucky found himself back on the steps to the second floor, staring at that same sunbeam. Natasha was walking the hall, back and forth, her boots clomping on the floorboards, looking as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“I can’t work out where to start,” said Steve. “Why did we want all this space?” But when he sat down next to Bucky he was grinning.

“Neither can I,” said Bucky. But, as his mother would have pointed out, they would never get anywhere if they never even made a start. He pushed himself to his feet. “We need new furniture in the bedroom, don’t we.”

“Yes,” said Natasha. “That bed looks abandoned, and there’s no room for my clothes in your old closet. Ohhh, I’ll have that room for my wardrobes.” She pointed.

“I thought you donated everything,” said Steve, putting his arms around her from behind; they had moved to stand in the doorway, surveying the bedroom with a critical eye.

“Not my jackets, Steve!” Natasha sounded affronted. He laughed at her, and she kicked him in the ankle, and just as she was stepping away, offended, he caught her elbows gently and kissed her: apologetic at first, and then rather more. Rather a lot more. Natasha made a delicious, happy little noise; her body curved towards Steve’s, and he gathered her close, bent over her. Bucky bit his lip and tried not to think about the fact that they hadn’t had sex in about a week; too busy organising the last-minute details of – of everything. There was so much to do, and they should really make a start.

You know. Sometime. When the kiss ended Natasha was mussed and flushed and her eyes were sparkling; Steve’s lush perfect mouth was red and he was breathing just a little too quickly.

Bucky said, “Got a lot to do before this place is properly habitable.” Barton had been so kind as to mail them a shopping list of stuff they would need.

Natasha crooked her finger at him. “Start with me.” Her voice was full of laughter.

“Darling, that’s terrible,” he said, fighting down a laugh while Steve groaned. “That’s _really_ terrible.”

“Anyone would think he doesn’t want us anymore,” said Steve.

Bucky looked him up and down: tight jeans, a grey t-shirt, baseball boots – the only sneakers either he or Steve were comfortable in – the lean of his body against the door frame, casually inviting, the tight little smile he wore, the open want in those blue eyes.

“Would they,” he said, and kicked his boots off very deliberately. Steve’s grin got wider; there was a deepening flush high on his cheekbones, pretty as a picture, and then Natasha came to him, and Bucky slid an arm around her waist and the other hand into her hair and kissed her. Her small warm hands framed his face and caressed his neck, and she was soft and strong and perfect in his arms, giving herself up, taking him in exchange. Steve was breathing quick, shivery, and he shut the door behind them with a soft click, shut them into their bedroom, this wide white space with the lost-looking bed and the open windows. For a moment they were all breathless with it, tense and uncertain.

Then the mood snapped; three pairs of hands were pulling at three sets of clothing, tangling in each other’s t-shirts and tripping over Bucky’s discarded boots and laughing together helplessly; Bucky pulled Steve around by his dog tags to kiss him like the world would end if he didn’t, and they had to topple Natasha onto the bed to drag her jeans off her, she was laughing so much. Christ, she was beautiful. Bucky missed the way her hair spread out across the bed a little, but the way her nose crinkled was the same, and her laugh-lines, and the lush curve of her lips, the perfect handful of her tits, her pubic hair a shadow behind the white panties. Steve dropped to the mattress beside her, propped on one elbow, his free hand on her abs, sliding up to cup her breasts and tease them, and she caught a hold of his wrist in both her hands and sighed in delight.

“Look at you,” Bucky murmured, pulling the panties over her legs luxuriously slow. “Just look at you.” He rubbed his thumb across her mons, just above her cunt, tangling the red curls, listening to the crisp little noise it made. “You got a plan, or do I just…?”

“Do what you want?” She shivered, arching up against Steve. “What do we want him to do?”

Steve kissed her, laughing. “You and then me.” Then he blushed bright red when his ears caught up with his mouth.

Bucky had to close his eyes. Natasha laughed again, rich and warm and wanting; a noise she would never, ever make in public, with anyone else present but them. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Steve wriggled a bit, his hardening cock brushing against her hip. “Course. Slick me up” – he put his hand between her legs, rubbed at her gently, circling his fingertips over her cunt – “with your come and just…” Steve talked dirty like he couldn’t help himself, like even he didn’t know what he was saying till he said it, and then it embarrassed him horribly after, if you cast it up to him: he was, in some ways, still kind of repressed about what he liked and wanted, and Natasha and Bucky were in unspoken agreement that it was their bounden duty to peel those layers of repression off of him by fucking him senseless as often as they could. If Steve was aware of this ambition he had as yet voiced no objections to it.

“Behave,” Natasha said fondly, wrapping her fingers around his cock and stroking him slowly; Steve bit his lip and made a noise that set off fireworks in Bucky’s chest.

“You know,” Bucky said, “that is a lot of pressure to put my self-control under.” He was kneeling between her legs, the old floorboards worn smooth and uneven under his knees, running his hands over her calves, her knees, up and down again and again.

“We don’t _just_ keep you ‘cause you’re pretty,” Steve said, prodding him in the side with his foot, and Bucky kissed the soft inside of Natasha’s thigh just above her left knee and laughed at him.

“Just you wait your turn.” He stood up, trailing his fingers up Steve’s leg as he rose, and suddenly he realised that he would be looking at this view for the rest of his life, however long that might be: the fall of light through the windows, the contours of the room, the two people tangled up in one another on the bed in front of him.

Natasha pushed herself up on her elbows; Steve reached out to him.

“We bought a house,” Bucky said, grinning like an idiot.

“Yes we did.” Steve was immensely self-satisfied. Natasha was biting her lip, and Bucky thought her eyes were a little wet.

“If I freak out after Clint and Laura have gone –” she said.

“Heh,” said Steve. “It took me two days to sign the contracts and even then I had to get drunk to do it.”

Natasha cackled. “So that’s what you and Thor were doing!”

Steve looked faintly embarrassed. “Yes.”

“You didn’t say anything.” Bucky was charmed.

“What was there to say,” said Steve, shrugging helplessly, and, yeah, that made sense. “Anyway – it’s done now.” He smiled. “No going back.”

No, never. Bucky had signed the contracts the second they arrived, dashing his signature across the paper in heavy black ink, tempted to have them framed. He had a vision of himself jumping up and down and shrieking for joy the way Emmy had used to at Christmas when she was very small; he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. God, look at him now. Just look. Other people preferred ceremonies and rings, but it was hard to imagine what more permanent promise of commitment Natasha Romanov could make than to buy a house with you; and as for Steve – prideful, private, wary Steve – well.

And they had made it to _him_ , of all people. They wanted _him_. It probably should have made Bucky humble. Truth was that mostly it made him smug. Look at them: the two best and bravest people he had ever known, outside of his Mam, and they wanted him for always. Natasha sprawled shamelessly with her legs spread for him, climbing flush in her cheeks, her nipples tight, goosebumps on her skin in the cool air, and her face soft and expressive and happy. Steve, propped beside her on his elbow, her hand on his cock, his hand splayed across her abs, warm and strong and alive and healthy, tipping his head back ecstatically as she stroked him, long column of his neck asking to be marked up by Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky could have stood here and looked at them for the rest of his life without even moving.

“Where did we even _put_ the lube?” he said instead, irreverent, and simultaneously they both started to laugh.

+++

The very next morning the doorbell rang at six thirty. Bucky was leaving the bathroom when it cut shrilly through the quiet of the house – he wasn’t sure he’d known they _had_ a doorbell – and he hurried down the stairs at once to get it. The first thing he thought of was neighbours come to welcome them, which i) said a lot about his state of mind these days and ii) made him panic when he got to the foot of the stairs and he realised he didn’t have a gun on him. Wait, Tasha’s shoulder holster was hanging on the coat rack from the old apartment. Her guns were SI, which he approved of – best quality you got – and fit easily into his right hand, like an old friend.

Bucky opened the front door, doing his best impression of half-asleep and totally harmless. (Given his height, his build, his scars and his prosthetic, he knew it wasn’t much of an impression, but people overlooked the darndest things if they tried hard enough.)

“Sergeant Barnes?” said the guy on the front porch. He was about Bucky’s own height, lanky and non-descript, Caucasian, brown hair – the sort of person a witness would describe as _I don’t know, just this guy_. Baseball cap, denims, a sweater with a hole in the shoulder that showed the plaid pattern of the shirt underneath. “It’s an honour, sir.”

“It is?” said Bucky, squinting at him doubtfully.

“Agent Robertson, sir.” He turned a little so Bucky could see the three other guys and the van in the road outside. “We’re here about the windows?”

“The windows,” Bucky repeated, leaning against the door jamb and frowning. Agent Robertson didn’t take the gun at all amiss.

“Bulletproof glass, sir?” he said. “Romanov called about it.”

“Oh!” said Bucky, a light breaking upon him. “Of course you are.” He sighed. “God I love that woman. I’ve been worrying about that. Come on in.”

Agent Robertson’s face did something constipated and twitchy, but he followed Bucky inside without saying anything; only Bucky heard him gulp when he saw Steve on the stairs, dressed and holding his running shoes in his hand.

“Cap,” he said respectfully. Steve’s bedhead was adorable, and all Nat’s fault; Bucky was manfully prepared to take the blame for the hickey on this throat.

Steve squinted at the visitor. “Robertson, isn’t it?” he said, voice a little raspy with sleep. “Logistics?”

“That’s right, sir. I’m here about the windows.”

“The windows!” said Steve, just as Bucky had.

“Bulletproof glass,” said Bucky.

Steve blinked twice. Then he said, “You’re a paranoid nutjob.”

“Thank you,” said Bucky, watching him sit down on the stairs and put his shoes on. “When you get back from running twice round the island of Manhattan in fifteen minutes will you bring us some doughnuts?”

Steve looked at him. Then he stood up and held out a hand.

“Come on,” said Bucky, but he fished his wallet out of his jacket and forked over forty bucks – more enough for doughnuts for everyone, surely. The only time inflation still really made his head spin was in relation to everyday things like food, or books or subway tickets.

“Thank you,” said Steve, tucking the cash into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Thanks very much, Robertson.”

“No trouble at all, Cap,” said Robertson, and pretended he didn’t see when Steve’s fingers brushed caressingly across Bucky’s stomach on his way out the door.

+++

All good resolutions about kitchens and bathrooms aside, the first thing they actually bought was the furniture for the bedroom: chest of drawers, dresser, new wardrobes, cushions for the window-seat, a hearthrug, a pile of soft thick rugs – Bucky had a shameless fetish, and Steve had a fetish he was sort of ashamed of (Steve was instinctively ashamed of most of his fetishes; it wasn’t his fault, he was just Catholic), and as for Natasha –  

For what was about the first time in his life, Bucky was looking forwards to winter, oh yes. Close the drapes and light the fire and spread one of those impossibly soft rugs on the floor in front of the fireplace – bedroom, living room, his fantasies weren’t picky – lay Natasha down on it, watch her writhe on it, the soft fabric rubbing against her bare skin; then he’d push her knees apart, slow and gentle, and kiss her cunt till she forgot every threadbare rag the red rooms had given her for blankets, every cold cell she had ever been locked in, every dawn assembly on the parade ground in sub-zero temperatures, every snow-covered field she had ever run across in bare feet. People thought _Steve_ hated the cold – not that he didn’t – but –

“Hey,” Natasha said, and elbowed him in the ribs.

Bucky jumped. “Huh?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Oh. Uh.” He shrugged, staring up at the concrete ceiling and hoping he wasn’t blushing too madly. “You know.” He rolled his head on the mattress to look at her.

She grinned at him. “No, not really.”

“Oh well.” He blinked. “Where’s Steve?”

“Charming the panties off the sales girl. Which I _just_ told you. She says we can have the mattress now and the bedframe tomorrow.”

“Is Steve _allowed_ to flirt with salespeople?” Bucky wondered.

“For a good cause,” Natasha said. “He’s got quite good at it.” She sounded proud.

“Well, we practice on him all the time,” said Bucky, and bounced, a little, on the mattress. The plastic wrapping crinkled ominously. Natasha was kicking her feet where they were hanging off the end.

“I want the lamp too.”

“Should we have an armchair? In the bedroom? Or a rocking chair? Some kind of chair.”

“All things are possible with enough time and money.” She was still smiling. “What were you thinking about, though?”

Bucky grinned. “Breaking the mattress in, my love. What else?”

She groaned at him and kicked his knee in disgust.

+++

They broke the mattress in twenty minutes after the bedframe was set up – spread a sheet and toppled onto it and went to town – Bucky sprawled, wantonly, across the width of the bed with his legs spread for Steve and tugged Natasha close, manhandling her into position; she was laughing as he tilted her hips for him just right and drew her down to his mouth, a single long lick to start, groaning against her cunt as Steve worked him open. Later on, everyone agreed the mattress was the perfect choice – and the bedframe didn’t even creak, much.

+++

A few of the neighbours did come around, welcoming and curious in equal measure, with cakes or nice wines. Bucky missed the first couple, but when the Larsons came over he was alone.

“Thank you so much,” he said, balancing the cake on his left hand; it seemed to be a fucked-up kind of muscle memory, he remembered old Granville smacking his elbow into position in the restaurant the first night he waited tables for dinner service when he was sixteen. “It’s very kind of you.”

“Oh not at all,” Amelia Larson said in delight. “It’s so lovely to have someone new move in – the house was empty for so long after old Mrs Van Beck died, it was a real shame.”

“Yes,” said Bucky. “The realtor said it took the son a long time to decide to sell.”

“Exactly. And you’ve already been fixing it up…?” She left the question hanging delicately.

“That’s right. It looks worse than it is, we’re hoping.” He smiled at her, feeling awkward. The assumption that, any minute now, he would invite them in for coffee hung heavily over the conversation.

“Well, if you need anything,” said Pete Larson heartily. “Not to brag but I’m good with a sander.”

“I bet,” Bucky said politely. He looked as though he were good with a comb and mirror and not much else, to tell the truth, and only as applied to himself. “Thanks very much, but Nat’s brother…” Barton would laugh at him for that. Bucky had no shame.

“Oh your wife? Lovely woman, if I may say so.”

“Of course,” said Bucky. “I mean.” He had been about to say, we’re not married, and someone was about to ask about Steve and where he fitted in, and all at once Bucky had no desire whatsoever to tell these people – perfectly lovely and polite as they seemed – anything about their lives. “Listen,” he said, straightening a little – shoulders back, charming smile. “I’d ask you in but frankly the place is a mess – painting you know – thanks so much for the cake, though, really. Another time?”

At least, he thought, he had not lost the all-important art of the polite dismissal. Mam would have been proud.

“Another cake!” Natasha said when she and Steve got back. “Is it chocolate? I only want some if it’s chocolate.”

“Strawberry cheesecake,” said Bucky.

“Oh well.” And she took out a plate and fork and attacked it, shamelessly.

“Maybe we should just throw a housewarming party,” said Steve. “I mean if everyone’s gonna come around anyway.” He sounded exasperated, and clearly had no more intention of eating the cake than Bucky did.

Housewarming party. Bucky had thrown one, of a kind, when he got his first place; the afternoon had been for family and the evening for friends, descending rapidly into drunken semi-debauchery – Steve had disappeared half an hour in and not showed up at Bucky’s place for three straight days after, which was frankly excessive, even though Deborah Miller _had_ had legs like Cyd Charisse and had loved to have Bucky… admire them. (Six months later it had been Steve’s place too; three months after that Bucky had got his draft letter, and his accountancy courses had dissolved into so much smoke and wishful thinking, along with the rest of his life.) He turned the concept over in his mind for a few seconds; then he realised that Natasha had put her fork down.

“No,” she said.

“Hmm?” Steve, putting the coffee machine on, looked at her in surprise.

“No parties,” she repeated. “No strangers in our house.” She had that old fixed look, the hiding-nervousness look, the one she wore when she wouldn’t be budged on something and was afraid that they would try anyway. The very stillness of her body gave away how important it was to her.

But her words unwound some knot of tension in Bucky’s chest that had taken up residence there as soon as the Larsons had rung the doorbell.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want ‘em in here either.”

Steve was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “OK.”

“If you want we can invite everybody to that bar a few blocks over,” said Natasha, striving for compromise. She was biting her lip.

“No,” Steve said. “It’s fine. I just thought – but to be honest I don’t really want to do it. It just seemed like – something normal people do.” He laughed, ruefully.

“You’ve never liked normal people before, I don’t see the point in breaking a ninety-year streak now,” said Bucky.

Natasha snickered. Steve wet his fingers and flicked water at him, and Bucky stuck his tongue out at him, laughing.

+++

Clint and Laura and the kids arrived on a Monday in a pick-up truck with handmade presents (the kids – well, and Laura if you counted the cake) and a selection of DIY for Dummies-type guides which Barton claimed he had printed off the Internet but Bucky suspected him of having typed up himself. Cooper and Lila were adorable little monsters, just as kids should be, and took to Bucky’s younger nieces and nephews at once, so that half the time whatever work they were trying to do was seriously impeded by the presence of a pack of whooping children. Bucky didn’t mind nearly as much as he pretended to, and besides, everyone was getting hugged a lot.

Setting the house to rights wasn’t quite as complicated as it had looked at first; for one thing it was in better condition than Bucky had feared. Laura taught them how to fix up the plumbing in an afternoon, and it turned out that Lila at six knew more about putting shelves up than Bucky or Steve ever had. It was adorable.

Natasha dodged out of work a lot to sit around in armchairs and cuddle the baby, occasionally pointing imperiously to bits of wall that various paintbrushes had missed, or the rough patches in the living room floor where it needed another sanding. More than once Bucky had caught her ogling Steve’s ass at opportune moments, but, well, he’d been doing the same. By the time the Bartons left again the house was spick and span and painted to perfection, perfectly habitable, if still somewhat lacking in the furniture department.

+++

See, if Bucky was proud of himself for anything, these days, he was proud of himself for winning the respect and liking of Nat’s family.

+++

They had an IKEA boycott, which meant that all the furniture was taking a really long time to collect. Natasha, being organised, methodical, and sensible, took a tour of the house and made organised, methodical and sensible suggestions for what should go in which room and what colours they wanted where: the walls were all white and the floor polished wood, so that made it easier. It made the space seem large and bright and – and quiet: the blank expanse of white in each room was simple and soothing. They could hang prints and drapes and Steve’s photos, or his drawings, but underneath there was calm. It was nice.

Occasionally Nat made Steve sketch her suggestions, and then they either argued about them over dinner or took the paper shopping and ended up buying furniture and knick-knacks and cushions and bookshelves for a different room entirely.

+++

Then in early June, when most of the rooms had been furnished and the bookshelves arranged to everyone’s liking and they were beginning to get truly comfortable in the house, the Yahtzee thing started.  

It was one hundred percent unequivocally and solely Steve’s fault, and for once he wasn’t even ashamed of it.

Scene of the crime was the corner bedroom on the second floor, right opposite the bathroom. They had fixed it up with a single bed, a dresser, a mirror, a bookshelf – mostly empty, that would change, all three of them collected books like they were going out of fashion – and a blanket box which currently held a pillow, a duvet, and a set of sheets.

“We should just put them on,” said Steve, bending over the box with one hand on the lid. “Otherwise the room looks abandoned.” He sounded a bit distracted.

“We _shouldn’t_ put them on,” Bucky said patiently, “they’ll just gather dust.” He was hanging a framed Monet print over the dresser. He’d been hanging prints in various rooms for what felt like hours while Steve wandered in and out, tidying this and straightening that, hanging around just to be close probably, Bucky thought, they all had days like that. Most of the prints were Monet, because everybody liked Monet and nobody but Steve liked modern art. Steve had brought that Pollack kid out to Brooklyn for a beer a couple of times after art classes and Bucky had not liked him in the slightest.

He stepped back from the dresser in triumph and looked over at Steve. Early evening sunlight limned his hair and turned his skin a warm gold; he was biting his lip and there was a little wrinkle between his eyebrows that Bucky found, frankly, adorable, and the deft fingers were tapping a thoughtful rhythm on the lid of the blanket box.

Also that ass. Bucky took a step to the side so he had a better view and let himself look, let himself admire the tight curve of it, the long legs, the narrow waist. He licked his lips absent-mindedly, not really thinking about sex as such – just looking, just taking the time to enjoy the fact that his boyfriend was in the room with him and they were fixing up their house together and he got to look at that gorgeous body whenever he wanted.

Sometimes he thought about Steve as he’d been before the war – thin face and narrow shoulders and hands a little too big to be proportionate – and wished they’d both been different, back then, different enough to love each other the way they did now, so that Bucky could have taken that body into his arms to touch and caress; maybe Steve might have learned his grace and deftness and the comfortable way he moved in his own skin by another means than pain and war and Natasha’s merciless training. Then again, perhaps if he’d been less proud then, less hurt and less determined, they’d both be dead: Bucky at Azzano, Steve of old age. Tasha would be alone. He shivered, pushing the thought out of his mind. They were alive and here and this was their home.

Steve was watching him, a faint flush on his cheekbones. “You OK?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Yeah, you know.”

Steve bit his lip. It was already a little swollen where he’d been chewing on it for a while, now, and his hands were – moving, as if nervous, and Bucky thought, oh, heart’s own, one day you’ll ask me for it outright and I – probably won’t find it half so hot as this. He down put the hammer that he’d still been holding and moved towards him – something flashed in Steve’s hooded eyes, something sharp and wanting.  

“Do you even know you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” said Bucky, aware his voice had dropped a little, purring, Natasha called it, like a big cat, and had hit him with a pillow when he’d called her kitten in retaliation.

“Move like that.” Steve was blushing properly now.

“Like what?” said Bucky, biting back a grin. “Put that lid down, gonna fuck you over it,” and reached for him quick as lightning; Steve took a step back, laughing, letting the lid fall shut with a thunk; “Yeah, you think so?” breathless the way he still often got when you said things like that to him so directly. But when Bucky came closer he went sweet and pliant all over, letting Bucky pull him in and manhandle him, hands all over, mouthing at his neck, till both of them were on their knees in front of the box; the rim dug nicely into Steve’s ribs under his pecs. When Bucky spread his legs with his own knees and pushed his torso down against the lid so his nipples would rub the wood through his shirt Steve gripped the sides of the box and moaned for it so perfect Bucky shivered.

“How long’ve you been thinking about this, anyway?”

“Oh!” said Steve, laughing. “I – that is.” He took a breath. “When don’t I think about you fucking me.” He moaned again when Bucky cupped him through his jeans, writhing about, a delicious movement that rubbed his ass against Bucky’s own hardening cock over and over.

“God, yeah.” It made Bucky shake when Steve said things like that, the blood pounding in his body, desire making him clumsy. Button-fly jeans, bless him, easily dragged open, Bucky despised fiddling with tiny zippers at times like these, and Steve’s cock hot and heavy under his palms, already half-hard, sweetest, wildest little noises falling out of his mouth. The smallest things could push Steve’s buttons; but this… “Playing Betty Crocker gets you hot?” Bucky wondered.

“Martha Stewart,” said Steve, “the modern day equivalent is Martha Stewart,” and the way his knuckles were whitening, his eyes half-closed in delight.

“That’s not an answer, come on.” Bucky mouthed at his neck, swallowing back a laugh, butterfly kisses softer than soft, and then a perfect hickey just behind his shoulder, dug his teeth in a little, typical Steve that it was that which made him harden all the way. When he let the collar of Steve’s t-shirt jump back into place it left a perfect red line on the other side of his neck where it had bitten the skin. Bucky leaned in again to lick and soothe it.

“Playing Betty Crocker gets _you_ hot,” said Steve, “haven’t even kissed me yet,” and Bucky took a hand out of Steve’s pants and tugged his head round by the hair to oblige, wet and messy and a little vicious. Steve was panting by the time they were done.

“Don’t you dare tell me I don’t treat you right.” Bucky grinned at him.

“You smug asshole,” said Steve, groaning. Even the tips of his ears were red. “OK, OK, yes, it turns me on that we own our own house. Now will you fuck me in it, please?”

“What, like it’s a problem?” Bucky pushed him back down over the blanket box again, ran his hands down the length of his back to the perfect curve of his ass. “Don’t you move.” Lube, where the fuck was the lube. In the bedroom, a whole floor away, why was their house so big. Ahhh. Spit it was. Bucky ran his hands over Steve’s back and flank over and over, feeling the heat of Steve’s thighs against his own, and Steve said, “How about you ascertain all the mission parameters before you jump to conclusions, Sergeant Barnes,” and rocked his hips back against Bucky’s, deliberate and filthy.

“You didn’t,” Bucky said blankly, while Steve laughed at him and laughed, shaky and embarrassed yet thoroughly pleased with himself, and when Bucky yanked Steve’s jeans and underwear down to his knees and rubbed a finger over his hole it turned out that he had. Bucky curled his fingers inside him at once, loving the tight hot grip of him, rubbed and twisted and stretched at him till Steve was desperate. Very probably he could come like this, just like this on Bucky’s fingers. Bucky certainly could have, in his place. It was an incredibly tempting thought.

“It’s you hanging those fucking Monet prints,” Steve gasped out, “with your face all concentrated and how I could tell you were thinking _at least it’s not Picasso_ every time you looked at them – oh oh Jesus Christ, Mary mother of god, fuck me, _fuck me_.”

So Bucky fit his hands into the crease of Steve’s hips and settled in to do exactly that. Every thrust in made Steve moan; the movement was jolting him against the blanket box, rubbing his chest across the varnished wood just as beautiful as Bucky had predicted, and he kept flexing his hands around the sides, gripping tight and letting go again, sweat gathering in the small of his back, under his armpits, darkening his hair. The room was warm and they were both still basically dressed and Bucky was happy to keep this up till Judgement Day, just kneel here for the next few centuries with his cock in Steve’s ass and his vision filled up with those broad shoulders, the flushed cheek, the hint of a grin – triumphantly self-satisfied – that just made him fuck Steve all the harder for being so – so _Steve_.

There was only one thing missing.

“Here.” He scrambled in his pocket, desperately trying to keep the rhythm, and slammed his phone down on the wood by Steve’s face. “Call Nat.”

“ _What!_ ”

“Call Nat,” Bucky said, “tell her to come home, want her on this stupid fucking blanket box with her legs spread, watch you eat her out while I fuck you, c’mon, call her.” Chances of Steve wanting to actually do it were slim-to-none, but oh he liked to think about it, liked to imagine it, liked to hear Bucky talk about it; he was hot and shaking and pushing back frantically onto Bucky’s cock, moaning as Bucky rubbed over his prostate again and again. “Gonna text her my view from up here, your face all red, how you move for me, your pretty ass spread open round my cock,” and Natasha slung her arms over his shoulders and kissed his temple and said, “It _is_ a beautiful view,” and Steve came, crying out, all over the stupid fucking blanket box, clenching so tight around Bucky’s cock that he followed him over with Natasha’s lips on his face, her hands on his shoulders and chest.

Silence, save the panting.

“Ah!” said Steve at last, shifting and groaning. “God, you’re heavy.”

Bucky snorted. “Uh-huh.” He knelt up again, reluctant, pulled carefully out of Steve; it sent vicious shudders through him to watch his own come slide out of Steve’s red, used hole. “OK?”

Steve sighed. “Jesus, yes.” Natasha’s small hands soothed his flanks as he slid off the blanket box into a puddle, rolling the stiffness out of his arms. “Oh god.” Post-orgasmic, Steve was a very different kind of pliant – not so much inviting as cuddly. He twisted about until he was lying half in Natasha’s lap, and she petted his hair and laughed at him.

“Poor darling, did he wear you out?”

“Did _I_ –“ said Bucky, sprawling on his back with his pants around his knees while Steve laughed. “That’s just –“

“You would not, for example, be amenable to that suggestion about the blanket box?” Natasha said wickedly.

“The one where you’re naked on it with your legs spread and Bucky’s fucking me into you?” Steve murmured. “Oh, I’m amenable.”

Bucky leaned over, biting his lip, and tucked two fingers inside Steve easily, making him twist and sigh. “I may opt for watching.” He wouldn’t hold out though; he knew that.

“You can leave your fingers there and watch if you feel like it.” Steve buried his face in Natasha’s lap for a minute; then he gathered his knees underneath himself again and sat up, dislodging Bucky’s fingers. Natasha was grinning at them both, flushed and lovely, and Steve gripped her hips and lifted her easily onto the damn box, where she spread her legs, dark brown trousers nearly the same colour as the wood, and fell back onto the mattress on her elbows as Steve unbuckled her boots for her, one after the other.

“You know,” she said, “this might be the first time we’ve had sex in a room other than our bedroom.”

“Uh,” said Bucky.

“Hmm,” said Steve.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Natasha yelled indignantly.

+++

So they called it Yahtzee, because they were ridiculous dorks who had to call it _something_. It wasn’t a competition, but the stated goal of the game was for all of them to have had sex in every room in the house three times: once all three of them, and once with each of the others alone. The argument over whether or not Steve and Bucky’s fuck in the corner bedroom counted was neatly solved by pinning Natasha to the bed, stripping her naked and making it count in the threesome column instead; she lay in Steve’s lap with her back to his chest and Bucky put finger marks on her hips and licked her clit as Steve bounced her on his cock while she dug trenches into Bucky’s shoulders with her fingernails and begged them both for more, so that argument ended satisfactorily all round, and all they had to do after was wipe down the blanket box and turn the mattress the other way up.

+++

In the meantime, Natasha was three rooms behind. Given that he loved her more than life itself, Bucky was determined to make it up to her.

+++

“Oh god,” Natasha said in the kitchen a week later, “oh god I regret ever complaining, quit trying to one-up each other, don’t you fucking dare stop,” and sobbed against the table she was bent over.

“One-up each other?” Bucky laughed, breathless. “That what you think? What’s he been doing with you, sweetheart, you been bent over this table before?”

“Ah! Oh, Christ, no, not –“ she swallowed, cried out, flung a hand above her head to grip the opposite side of the table as he pounded against her sweet spot, always easiest from behind like this, and it drove her wild when she couldn’t see him, when all she had was touch and hearing and his cock inside her.

“Tell me?” Not much longer; Bucky was breathing hard and he kept having to close his eyes against the sight of her spread out for him, the dark silky dressing gown rucked up round her hips and her sweetly rounded ass, reddened with the way their bodies were slapping together.

“In the chair.” She flung her hand out, gesturing at the corner just out of the way of the windows to the back yard. “Rode him till –“

“Till you came in his lap, darling, all sweet and shaken up and letting him fuck you six ways from Sunday till he filled you up? Stand up after and feel his come dripping down your thighs…”

“Jesus,” she said, and bit her own fingers.

“Don’t do that.” Bucky pulled on her wrist, gave her his own. “Get ‘em wet, love” – that made her cry out, though whether it was the order or the endearment he wasn’t sure and would have to try and find out at some later date – “go on, sweetheart, you’re so fucking gorgeous, I really am the luckiest bastard in the city of New York.”

She licked at his fingertips, laughing. “What, like there’s not a world outside NY?”

“Not a world outside this house I give a fuck about,” he said, and gently pushed a wet fingertip into her ass. “Remember the last time you had us both?”

And that was that on both their accounts.

+++

The art room count in the threesome column was more or less an accident. Shortly after she had started staying the night with them – the first few weeks of their relationship had involved frequent spectacular sex but a hesitation, on Natasha’s part, to spend the full night in their bed – Bucky had been woken by Steve’s finger in his ribs; he’d crawled to the other side of the bed and seen, through the open door, Natasha doing ballet exercises in her underwear, her face very still and peaceful as her body flowed from one form into the next. The grace of her movements had not been as captivating as her happiness; the fact that she had left the door open meant she trusted them to see this, this most intimate, personal ritual.

At the time she had been using the back of their old couch as a makeshift barre. The first weeks in the house, she used the landing railing at the top of the staircase. By the end of the first month Bucky and Steve had colluded to rip out one of the guest room walls on the second floor, making it twice the size, sanded the wooden floor to perfection, installed mirrors all along the interior wall, and put a barre up. When Natasha had asked, Steve called it ‘the art room’ and pretended he was working on some project he didn’t want anyone to see; she, looking vaguely wistful, as if she had expected no other answer, had wandered away and not tried to go back inside.

Until now.

“Am I in the art room? What’s going on?”

“Shh.” Steve rubbed her upper arms, smiling. “Open your eyes.”

Silence. Natasha blinked twice, and her whole face shut down: all the expressions she usually let them see were wiped away. Bucky bit his lip. Behind her, Steve swallowed.

“For me?” Her voice was very quiet, wondering.

“Yeah.”

She put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wet. Then, after a moment, still in that soft voice, she said, “Thank you.” Her face remained completely expressionless.

Steve put his arms around her from behind. Bucky stepped in close; she caught his hand in hers and tugged, so he leaned down and kissed her, soft and tender. Her lips parted and her breath caught. Then, suddenly, she was crying, even as the kiss turned passionate.

They lay on the couch in the corner afterwards – the same ratty old couch that had been in their old apartment – silent and still, holding each other for a long time.

+++

Anyway, the living room was next.

“I really don’t think this is entirely fair,” Bucky said into the couch cushions. “Given that when Steve and I had sex in here it was more along the lines of a ten-minute handjob than an actual fuck.” He bit back a moan when Natasha dripped more lube over his hole, let some slide down his asscrack to his balls. The woman was a sadist.

“See, I’m beating him already.”

“Please don’t turn it into a competition,” Bucky said. “I won’t survive it.”

“Oh my love.” She kissed the nape of his neck, his shoulder, the scarred seam of his left arm. “Like you haven’t already. You wanna know what Steve did with me in here?”

“I won’t survive it,” he repeated, helpless not to rub up against the couch, the soft fabric of the towel draped over it like a caress on his cock. His knees were spread wide on the smooth floor and his hands were above his head, elbows digging into the cushions by his forehead.

“Possibly not.” She draped herself all along his back so he could feel her soft breasts pressed against his skin, the leather of the harness against his ass, the body-warm dildo nudging between his legs. “Or at least you’re never gonna use that armchair again without getting hard just imagining all the things we might’ve done in it.”

Half a dozen half-formed fantasies tore right through him, lighting all his nerves up; he was smearing pre-come across that damn towel, he was sure. “Picture you sitting in it again without getting wet,” he said, pushing back against her, hoping to hell she’d get the hint. “Don’t think so. Think you’re gonna soak your panties just looking at it. Don’t think you’re gonna fare much better with this couch, either.”

“Oh, baby,” said Natasha, laughing. “But I’m not the one who’s about to come all over it.”

Well that was the truth. Bucky braced himself against the cushions as she pushed in, cursed her for teasing, desperate for a dick in him, rubbing up across his prostate, and then, slowly, as she pounded into him, as often happened when she or Steve fucked him, he felt his body unwind, unravel into taffy, near-liquid, melting. “Oh,” he said, sighing, “oh, Tasha sweetheart, yes, harder, please.” He bit his lips and moaned when she complied, leaning in close to him so their sweat-slick bodies rubbed together. "There, yes.” Sparks lit up behind his closed eyelids; her heavy breathing and the sound of his own heartbeat thudding in his ears were the only sounds left in the world, and time dissolved into meaninglessness. She’d set a pace that was destroying him, a hard steady fuck that was just this side of too much too soon, glorious. “God I love this. I love you.” Her hands caught his, tugged them down to the couch cushions to tangle their fingers together. Again, again, again, again. “Fuck me, darling, that’s it, Jesus. Putting me on my knees making you wet? Gonna lay you down after, spread your legs an’ see how much of a mess you are for me. Unbuckle that thing and lick you clean –“ His words broke off into a cry when she picked up the pace even more, bit at his shoulder; for long beautiful minutes she fucked him into helpless, mindless silence: blank delight was all his mind had room for. 

“Yeah. Yeah, come on.” She tugged at him, pulled him backwards, he made a helpless noise of delight when his own weight forced her deeper into him, and she laughed softly, rolling her hips; god it was a fucking turn-on that a body so small could be so strong, hold him so easily, patched-together metal skeleton and all; she settled inside him, just right, just perfect, and brought their joined right hands down to wrap around his cock. “Here, come on, come on,” and three or four strokes later he was gone, swallowed up by ecstasy, laughing as he trembled in her arms and came all over – not the couch, as threatened, but himself.

“Oh, Nat.”

“Sit up,” she said, sounding strained and desperate, and he pushed himself up again, groaning at the rub of the dildo inside him; she pulled out gently and at once he helped her onto the couch, still-shaky fingers fighting with the harness so he could put his mouth on her cunt. Her inner thighs were drenched and her labia were swollen open and when he sank two fingers inside her and licked at her clit gently she went off at once, the blood-hot fluttering around his fingers and the way her body jerked tempting him to thoughts of round two.

“Love you.” They said it nearly at once, and she slid off the couch again into his lap as they laughed together too. Bucky cradled her close, savoured her soft body in his arms, the taste of her slick on his tongue, the sweet ache in his ass and the stickiness of their sweat: all the minute, glorious details he had not been able to revel in Before, the little things that were his forever, now.

+++

Bucky and Steve went back to the corner room to ‘make it count’ in their own column by indulging in an indecently drawn-out session of 69-ing which made even Bucky’s jaw ache and his neck sore. Not that he cared, when Natasha’s response to watching him rolling his shoulders later that night was to push him gently into a chair and massage the knots out.

Not that he cared when he was kneeling over Steve, either, the wet hot mouth around his cock and clever fingers playing with his balls, his own face buried between Steve’s thighs so the smell of him was overwhelming, the weight of his cock on his tongue, his knees and elbows digging into the mattress and the way their chests rubbed against each other, Steve’s moans vibrating around Bucky’s cock, the way his hips jerked up deliciously when Bucky used his teeth, just a bit, feeling the muscles in his thighs, the skin softer here underneath the dusting of hair.

He’d never done this – never had sex this way with another man. Slow, leisurely, intimate; familiar too, knowing your partner’s body before you touch it, the fun of knowing where to touch and how but setting yourself to discovering new ways anyway; those had all been things he shared with women. Or even if they both wanted it a little rougher, a little dirtier, it hadn’t been the same, for Bucky, as sex with a guy. Suckjobs and handjobs and hurried, guilty, desperate frotting were nothing like _this_. Anal too – the first time Steve had fucked him had been messy and awkward and a little uncomfortable and amazing from start to finish: that he got to do this, have this, that they had the time and the freedom to try whatever they could think of, that they could laugh about it and say _better next time_ and know that there would in fact be a next time, and a time after that, and a time after that, until it was hard to remember how they’d ever managed to live with each other for thirty-odd years without sharing this.

Everything about it felt new, even after all these months, and he was helplessly, utterly addicted to it – and to Steve.

+++

“So that’s the living room and the kitchen,” said Natasha. “Which was the third room?”

“Dining room,” said Bucky.

“Hmm,” said Natasha. “You really went for the cliché trifecta, didn’t you.”

“It’s cute that you’re judging me when you blew Steve in the downstairs bathroom yesterday,” Bucky said cheerfully. The downstairs bathroom was singularly misnamed: it was actually just a toilet and sink, too narrow for anything more interesting than blowjobs, really.

“Jump start on the other rooms,” Natasha said.

“All three of us are not going to fit in there,” Bucky said. If Tasha leaned in the corner and put one foot up on the sink he thought he would fit between her thighs, but it would probably be uncomfortable for her; maybe best to just sprawl on the floor and let her have him whatever way she wanted…

“I thought of that,” Natasha said. “We’ll have a threesome exception count for the downstairs bathroom.”

He sighed. “You’ve got a chart, haven’t you.”

“Baby, we are having a lot of sex,” Natasha pointed out.

Bucky grinned. “I knowwwwww,” he said, drawing it out into a contented sigh.

+++

“Have you seen Natasha’s chart?” Steve asked lazily a few days later. They were sprawled out on the bed in the Blue Guest Room on the second floor (what even was Bucky’s _life_ ), pleasantly stuck together with sweat, Steve’s head on Bucky’s chest. His hot weight was getting to be suffocating, but Bucky was too comfortable and too in love to move.

“No,” said Bucky. “Have you?”

Steve shook with laughter. “No. I keep picturing some sort of extensive colour-coded spreadsheet with sub-pages for the different things we’ve done in each different room and _possibly_ a rating system.”

So did Bucky, if he was honest. He stared up at the ceiling, smiling. “Nat’s not known for half-measures.”

“To say the least.” Steve sighed contentedly, his breath gusting hot over Bucky’s skin. “God I love that woman.”

“I know,” said Bucky. “I do too.” What freedom, to say it out loud, to say it out loud in their own home.  He sighed as well, running his fingers over Steve’s back.

“Hmm.” Steve shifted a bit. “You’ve gone very mellow, recently,” he said. “Is it all the orgasms?”

“What, no,” said Bucky. “I mean possibly. What d’you mean, mellow?”

Steve laughed at him. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I just – you know, Sam asked me once what made me happy? And I didn’t know.”

Something caught a hold of Bucky’s heart and squeezed.

“And now?”

“You have to ask?”

“No.” Bucky smiled. “I guess not.”

“I hope not.” Steve pushed himself up on his elbows to kiss him, slow at first, but that never lasted; before long Bucky was rolling his hips luxuriously as clever fingers stroked his cock, and Steve was squirming against him, flushed and eager, rubbing his hardening cock against Bucky’s side.

“Not sure Yahtzee requires a round two,” Bucky murmured.

Steve’s eyes darkened. “Don’t _start_.” He was picturing having to start the whole thing over if they changed the rules, Bucky just knew he was, and it made him laugh.

“Baby, baby, I will if I want to.” He rolled them over easily, pinning Steve to the mattress, and basked in that soft wanton little moan. “Yeah?”

“You gotta ask,” said Steve, biting his lip. “C’mon, I – I’m all wet with you, I want you in me again,” the blunt words rattling hotly through Bucky’s brain, and he settled on his knees and dragged Steve’s hips into his lap and pushed back inside where Steve wanted him without further ado. Time stretched ahead of him endlessly, and the room was bright gold with evening sunlight, the whole big house utterly silent except for Steve’s gasps and breathing and the sweet _uh uh uh_ noises he made when Bucky thrust in; the whole world was his to play with, and all he wanted to do with it was fuck Steve Rogers through every single mattress man had ever made.

+++

There was this one rivulet of water that always dripped onto Natasha’s shoulder from her hair, trailed a path down her chest to her breast, passed by her nipple and continued on over her abdomen and the line of her hip to her thigh. Bucky always lost it somewhere above her kneecap. Did it go over or just off to the side?

“You’re staring,” she said. She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, not really doing anything, her hands on the edge of the sink.

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky said, careful not to make it a tease or a joke. Some things should always be said sincerely.

Oh, he was enchanted when she blushed, just a little, a shy pleased smile curling her mouth; she turned her head away a bit so he couldn’t see. That was new. He’d always meant it when he said things like that to her, always, but she rarely seemed to register them as actual compliments. Now…

“My face feels different,” she said, looking in the mirror again. “I feel different.”

Bucky came over to her, curious, and stood behind her, looking at – looking _down_ at her reflection. Natasha was strong and quick and powerful and always very calm: she exuded competence the same way Steve did, and somehow this made her seem tall, in your mind’s eye, but she wasn’t. She was at least a foot shorter than Bucky and probably about a hundred pounds lighter; in her stocking feet he thought she was even shorter than Steve. Than Steve had been, that was.

Barefaced, naked, her wet hair plastered to her head and dripping, her skin still flushed with the heat of the shower. Different? He cocked his head. Line of her nose, curve of her jaw, lush mouth made for smiling that rarely did, eyes grey-green, surrounded by long lashes, a curious look in them just now.

“You don’t look different,” he said.

“Different to what?”

Bucky pursed his lips. “To my _vdova_ , I suppose.” He put out a hand, hesitated for a minute. Then he ran his knuckle down her spine, slow, and watched her back arch, catlike, contented.

Her eyes were lidded when they met his in the mirror again. “You look different to my Soldier.”

“I was him, but he wasn’t me.”

“I was her, but she wasn’t me.” She was teasing him.

“All right,” said Bucky, mouth curving into a smile. “You look different. We both look different. Natasha and Bucky aren’t – them.”

“No.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s just that it’s been forever since I looked at myself.”

He put his hands on her hips and tugged her back to lean against him, hot skin sticky with lotion; Natasha turned her head and rested it against his shoulder, still watching them in the mirror out of the corner of her eye, the glint of his left arm, the ragged scars on him. Both of them were pale; it contrasted with his chest hair, made her seem oddly vulnerable. That was probably just the light.

“But why wouldn’t you think I look different? It was eight years ago.”

Bucky kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re always – you’re my fixed points, I guess. Sometimes I turn around to look at Steve and I’m staring at his chest because I expect him to be a foot shorter than he is.”

That made her laugh, and when she turned her face up to be kissed it was slow and soft and warm. After a moment she turned to face him properly, her soft breasts pressed against his chest, and Bucky wrapped his arms around her and held her close, enveloped, suddenly very conscious of his own size, and of hers. Natasha hitched up on tiptoes to meet him, her hands on his chest, and he smiled against her mouth, lost in her. They necked until her mouth was swollen and he was growing hard against her stomach, his feet planted a little apart and his arms around her holding her up; he could feel the shift in her weight and posture when she kicked a foot up to rub her other calf with her toes, and she was playing with his chest hair, scritching her fingers through it like she’d scritch a cat. When she pulled back he kissed the corner of her mouth, the tip of her nose, nudged her head to tilt back and applied himself to her soft exposed throat.

She sighed, all drawn out and shivery, and rubbed the heel of her left hand over his nipple, gentle, teasing. “Yahtzee?” she said.

Bucky cackled helplessly against the side of her neck. “Not everything is about motherfucking Yahtzee,” he said.

Natasha pouted. “But we – hey!” She grabbed his shoulders when he lifted her by the hips and wrapped her legs around his waist because she didn’t have much choice, his cock rubbing against her swollen wet cunt.

“All creativity aside,” Bucky said, heading for the door, “sometimes I like to get to make love to you _in our own bed_ , which we _bought_ for that purpose –”

“We bought it for sleeping in,” she said, and kissed his mouth before he could think of a retort. “I love you.”

Christ. He had to stop right there on the landing and kiss her again, deep as before, her hands on his neck, in his hair. “I love you,” he said quietly. “My _vdova_.”

Natasha smiled at him, a little sad, and a little happy, and a lot in love. “My Soldier.”

+++

The only trouble with the art room was that now Natasha did her ballet exercises in private, instead of in the hall where both of them could see. She rarely closed and never locked the door, though.

+++

Bucky thought about his Mam most often when he cooked. It wasn’t that he followed her recipes all the time, though he certainly did like to make things the way she had; it was just that he associated kitchens with her: the smell of her baking, the sound of the knife on the cutting board, the way she’d hum to herself or tell him to put his homework down for just a second and read the next line of the recipe.

“It says three onions,” said Steve.

“Nobody here likes onions that much,” said Bucky. “I’m skipping the garlic too, I want kisses after dinner.”

Steve laughed, and stole a piece of raw carrot. “Thanks for cooking.”

Bucky blinked at him.

Steve shrugged; suddenly he looked awkward. “You do it a lot, and –”

“That’s cause I’m past the suicidal phase of my recovery and prefer not to suffer your concoctions,” said Bucky, which was a base insult: Steve was not a bad cook at all – he just didn’t enjoy it much.

“I never used to cook if I could help it,” he said, leaning against the kitchen table with his legs outstretched. Bucky twirled the chopping knife in his fingers for a moment; then he carried on, reluctant to focus on Steve in case that made him clam up the way he’d used to when you asked him about his troubles when they were boys. “In DC, I mean. I always – I ate in a lot of diners. The SHIELD canteen. Pretended that was me being out in the world.” He laughed quietly. “I’d stand in the kitchen and think about us ruining stew that time, or that Christmas when Ma and Aunt Beth had that fight about the gravy.”

Bucky hadn’t thought about that in years, and it made him laugh. Never before or since had any of the Rogers-Barnes extended family known its matriarchs to argue about anything; at least not in front of the children; and never had anyone known or discovered what that fight had really been about.

“Yeah,” said Steve, laughing too. He stood upright again and came close, slid an arm around Bucky and kissed him, easy, slow, tender. “I just – thank you.”

Bucky wrapped his hand around the back of Steve’s neck and kissed him back, just as gently. “If you wanted to make yourself useful,” he said, and kissed him again, “you could read to me.” He’d used to read his school books aloud to Mam and the girls, sometimes, if it was something they would like, while she cooked.

Steve knew it. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll – what are you reading? I’m not suffering through that – what was it? The one where everyone’s miserable and the world’s ending.”

“That describes like eighty percent of all the science fiction I’ve ever read,” said Bucky, laughing. “Nah, it’s on the dining room table, it’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’m reading Nobel laureates.”

“They gave it to Hesse,” said Steve.

“I know,” said Bucky, groaning. “I _hate_ Hesse.”

“Believe me, I know.” Steve came back into the kitchen with the book in his hands, cracked it open at the bookmark; Bucky said, “Just start wherever,” and went back to the cutting board, smiling a little as Steve found a sentence to start with and began to read.

+++

“Now behave,” Natasha said, rubbing her small strong hands over his bare thighs. Steve laughed softly, bent over the back of the chair, his breath on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Five bucks says you don’t make it to Natasha’s first orgasm.”

“Or yours,” Natasha said, looking up at him from under her lashes.

Bucky swallowed hard, flexing his hands against the arms of the chair. “What’s the forfeit for losing?”

“It’s not a challenge,” Natasha said, and bent over his lap, suckled at the head of his cock. Bucky shook.

“It kind of is,” he said unsteadily.

“You OK?” Steve said, kissing his neck.

“Yes.”

“Puts you all off-balance at first. Just settle into it.”

“When you watch us, do you ever settle into it?”

“Sometimes,” Steve said. “If I’m tied down.” He stroked Bucky’s bare wrists gently. “Imagine you can’t get out of this chair, and just enjoy it.” When he straightened up and moved away his fingers brushed lightly over Bucky’s shoulders, the nape of his neck, and the soft touch made him shiver, it was so far from what he wanted. When Natasha stood up he barely knew where to look: the slow sinuous movement, her smile, her perfect tits, the curve of her waist and swell of her hips, the lean strong legs, the dark red curls between them. Steve’s hands on her hips as he stepped behind her, and how she leaned against him and swayed, lazily, seductively, brushing up against him. Bucky could imagine – Bucky knew how it felt, both ways: Natasha’s skin on his, Steve’s strength holding him up.

He gripped the arms of the chair and bit his lower lip.

“Not in a hurry, are you.”

Natasha’s grin widened. “No,” she said. “Unless Steve’s in a hurry.” She tilted her head to the side as Steve kissed her neck, eyes closed, blissful.

“I’m not in a hurry,” he said, making his way up to her jaw; she sighed and shivered and said, “Oh, yes,” when he cupped her breasts in his hands, rubbed at her nipples. “I’m definitely not in a hurry. I could do this all day.” He was blushing, but there was no hesitation or hint of embarrassment in his voice.

“How _are_ we going to do this?” Natasha wondered, lacing her fingers with his, watching Bucky from under her eyelashes. “He should have a view…”

“From behind?” Steve murmured. “On our knees?”

“Mmmmm.” They all knew that was about Natasha’s favourite position. She tipped her head back, exposing her throat, sighing. “You hold my arms?”

“If you want, love.” Steve was smiling.

“So I can just lean forwards and…” And fall apart, beyond thought or action; hang suspended and let Steve do all the work… Bucky blinked, twice, trying to get the image out of his brain, but it wasn’t as if the sight of them in front of him was any less overwhelming. Steve’s big hands on her breasts, his body bent over hers; Natasha’s fingers brushing her hips, playing with her pubic hair, teasing herself, both of them swaying against each other.

“Yes. Yes.”

“Or,” she said, “on your back on the bed so I can ride you.”

“Facing him?”

“Either way.” She was grinning again, wicked, and Bucky tried hard to keep his face composed, but he was fairly sure he was wearing the dumbest, most lust-drunk look known to man. His thighs were tense against the seat of the chair, and slowly he forced himself to lean back, to sprawl a little, spread his legs; an open invitation. Natasha blew him a kiss.

“Alternately,” Steve said, “on your back on the bed with your hips in my lap?”

“Oh!” Natasha laughed. “Yes…” Legs over Steve’s hips, half her body arched off the bed, his big hands on her waist dragging her onto his cock, her tits bouncing, an unimpeded view of his hips flexing, his chest and shoulders, his flushed ecstatic face. Bucky blinked again. “Let’s do that.”

“Come here then,” Steve murmured, pulling her backwards towards the bed; she went easily, laughing, letting him move her, and then she twisted quick and pushed him backwards, across the breadth of the bed, swung her leg over his, obscuring Bucky’s view of Steve’s cock, hard and damp with pre-come. Steve’s hands caught her hips, fingers pressing in lightly, gripping just the way she liked; he was laughing, face bright with glee and pleasure, as she leaned over him, put her hand between her legs, rocking her hips – oh, oh, right over his cock, nestled in her wet slit – Bucky shuddered. Steve’s head fell back; he moaned, and his body arched luxuriously. “Natasha –”

“Yes,” she said, panting a little. “God you feel good…”

“I feel good.” Steve laughed, breathless himself. “You – Nat – so wet sweetheart, wanna be in you –”

“Want you in me.” She leaned over to kiss him, wet and deep, and his arms came up around her back, trapping her torso against his own; for a moment they looked like a photograph, some classy, artsy erotica, Steve’s muscled arms against Natasha’s deceptively slender body, strength and softness. God, Bucky was hard. He gripped the chair arms tight, feeling the wood under his right palm, the pressure and shape under his left. They were beautiful and they were his and he wanted them desperately, wanted to be on the bed with them, between them or beside them or...

He shook his head, hard; forced himself to relax. Watch, just watch, just sink into it and watch… the noise of them kissing was overwhelming in the small room, Natasha’s little moans muffled by Steve’s mouth, and they were rocking together, her hips rolling sinuously over his. Steve’s big hands trailed down her back, put soft indentations into the flesh of her ass; he pulled his foot up to plant it on the mattress, prepared to roll them over. Bucky could see it already, the practiced movement, lifting her up and laying her gently down again, how she would laugh and pull him closer.

“Tasha… want you – need you –”

Bucky’s mouth was dry; he tried to work some moisture into it, realised he was moving his legs restlessly, trembling. Natasha drew back – kissed Steve again – their noses rubbed. Then she sat up, long graceful lean, the straight line of her back, the curves of her breasts, her peaked nipples, the smile she wore, the long neck exposed by the short-cut hair. It was the sort of thing that Steve should paint: the graceful woman laughing, straddling her lover’s hips, her face flushed with joy.

It took Bucky’s breath away. It took Steve’s too, you could tell, his eyes too wide, his breathing too loud. He ran his hands up her body to her breasts, cupped and stroked and teased them, tugged at her nipples, and Natasha sighed and shifted her hips restlessly and leaned into the touch, her hands sliding on Steve’s chest, tracing his abs, his pecs – teasing his own nipples, that made him bite his mouth, smiling – then further up, towards his shoulders, and when he went to lift her she moved just so and her hands slipped to his throat and god almighty, that hit a button Bucky hadn’t known Steve had, and by the look on his face neither did he: a shudder tore through him, and he gasped, and then he went soft and pliant all over, his hands falling limp to Tasha’s ass, blue eyes blown impossibly wide.

Natasha said, “Oh!”

Steve swallowed hard. “Leave it there –”

“Yes,” she said, settling above him. “Oh, sweetheart, how gorgeous you are…” She brushed her hair behind her ear and rolled her hips again lazily before she raised herself up on her knees. “Inside me, go on,” and Bucky didn’t know where to look: Natasha’s face lit up with joy or Steve’s so blown away with lust or his hand stroking over Natasha’s hip and thigh to wrap around his cock, wet with Tasha’s slick and his own pre-come, and stroke the tip through her folds until she bit her lip and murmured “There,” and began to sink down, her eyes closing, her right arm outstretched, to Steve’s exposed throat, her other hand tangling with his; she was bracing herself against his arm as she rocked over him, her breasts bouncing, the muscles in her thighs straining when she rose up, sank back down, over and over, lost in it.

Bucky didn’t know if it was Steve’s ragged, uneven breathing he could hear or his own. Steve was all flushed beautifully red, his kiss-bitten mouth open, his eyes closed; all that strength and all that power – physically and otherwise – pliant and biddable for Tasha, utterly surrendered up. Bucky could practically see him melting into the mattress under the pressure of her hands.  And Tasha, Tasha was delighted, you could see it all over her face, she was stunned and joyous and happy.

“So good,” she said, breathless, “so good for me, look how gorgeous you are, could do this all day. Love your cock inside me, love how sweet you are to let me do this” – her voice cracked – “can’t believe you’d let me do this. Shh, sweetheart, I have you, you’re mine…”

“Yes.” Steve’s voice was ragged with lust. “Nat, yes, need you, want –”

“Here. I’m here.”

“I know.”

Had they forgotten Bucky was even in the room? He wouldn’t be surprised, and didn’t care. Sink into it, enjoy: but it wasn’t about some silly, sexy game anymore, some floor show thing where all of them would end up laughing at themselves. This was something more intimate than that, something gentler, almost fragile. It was shaking him apart that they let him see it, that they cared so little about his presence: he belonged here, right here with them, under any circumstances, no matter what they were doing, and they took no more notice of him than of the furniture because it was unthinkable that he would not be there. Bucky gripped the arms of the chair, and bit his lip to try and distract from how his cock was aching, and watched Steve and Natasha chase each other into ecstasy, spellbound, in love.

+++

Natasha hated it when one of them did her laundry. Half the time Steve and Bucky barely remembered whose clothes were whose, but offer to put Tasha’s shirts in the wash with their own and she would glower at you.

“It’s just laundry.”

“I can do my own laundry,” she said.

“Nobody said you couldn’t,” said Steve, annoyed.

“Look, just leave it.”

“I mean it saves water. And electricity.”

“Steve, have you seen the house we live in? We’re not poor.”

Steve put his hands on his hips, mulish. “It’s not –”

“Then don’t think about it.”

“I was just offering.”

“And I said no thank you!”

“The weirdest thing about this argument,” Bucky said contemplatively from the armchair in the corner of the room, “is that I remember every beat of it from listening to my parents.”

Natasha put her book on her lap; Steve, standing over the laundry basket with his hands on his hips, swivelled to stare at him.

Bucky looked at them from over the top of yesterday’s _Times_. “Thanks for putting the laundry on,” he said to Steve.

“Look, I’ve got hang-ups,” Natasha said after a minute. It was the closest Steve was going to get to an apology.

He laughed, rueful, defeated. “I know. Anyone else want coffee?”

+++

One fine Sunday morning Bucky woke up with his face in the pillows and Steve’s hands on his hips, his ass; the breeze from the open window was chilling his skin – probably why he’d woken. The room was dim, as if the day were overcast and grey, but his observations were cut abruptly short when Steve nudged his thighs apart and spread his ass cheeks and licked at him, nuzzled softly at his perineum, his asshole; god, Steve had shaved already, deliberately, his skin smooth and slightly damp against Bucky’s. Bucky groaned into the pillow, raspy and hoarse with sleep, and clenched his fists in the sheets: Steve’s mouth was wet and warm and clever, coaxing him into lax, still-sleepy bliss.

“Morning,” he gasped out when Steve let up a little. “What’d I do –”

“Oh, you’re you,” Steve said, mischievous, and went back to work, which was bad enough, but then Natasha put her hands on his back, cool and strong and slicked with something.

“Lie still for me, Soldier,” she said, her thumbs digging into the knots in his muscles, and Bucky made a noise that probably counted as a sob.

“Yeah, Christ, just – Christ, I -”

“We’ve got you,” she said. “Gonna take you all apart. Roll you over after and sit on your face while Steve fucks you.”

“Jesus,” Bucky said blankly. “Do this every Sunday, swear to god…”

She was laughing. “Well you’re easy pleased.”

“Yes,” said Bucky, digging his knees into the mattress a little so he could squirm back against Steve, sighing in delight when that clever tongue curled inside him. “Yes I am.”

+++

The very first time the three of them had made love together, Steve had flinched a little when Natasha, straddling his lap, had gone to put her hands under his t-shirt. She’d paused, surprised; Steve had laughed, self-conscious, not quite able to look Bucky in the eye, as if the existence of the prosthetic robbed Steve’s own injuries of validity.

“I’ve got – scars,” he said to Natasha, and she’d kissed him gently.

“I promise not to run out screaming.”

“Ha.” But Steve had looked a little as if she’d read his mind. And they were bad; no question about that. It wasn’t the individual wounds but the number of them, the overlapping cicatrices collected in such a short span of time, comparatively, that they almost certainly would have killed an ordinary human. Bucky, kneeling on the bed, had nearly held his breath; for a moment he’d felt – not unwanted, but unneeded, just now; this was between Natasha and Steve.

Natasha had blinked. Then she had reached out, a little hesitant, and touched the twisted knot of the infected bullet wound on Steve’s left side. Then the burn scar over his hip. Then the knife wound in his shoulder. Then the marks of the compound fracture on his left arm. Finally, very gently, the newest of all: the scars Bucky himself had given Steve on the Helicarrier in DC.

“Yeah, so.”

“I can see that my mixed martial arts lessons came not a moment too soon.”

He had laughed softly. “New suits, better materials.”

“Well,” she’d said, and shut her eyes for a second. “You might as well see mine.”

+++

So in light of everybody’s scars, Sunday afternoons at the beach at Coney Island were a really bad idea.

Still, generally speaking, what Nat wanted, she got, and what she wanted was an afternoon at the beach _like normal people, James, you can stay home and brood over your sins in the closet under the stairs if you’d rather but I am going out_.

Two things, here. First, Tasha in a bikini, and Steve in swim trunks. Second, she was right. Just because they had a house they all loved didn’t mean they had to haunt it. It wouldn’t be healthy. It would end in claustrophobia and wedding cakes covered in spider webs.

“Darling,” Natasha drawled while he rubbed sunscreen into her back, “if either of you left me at the altar I would have a thing or two to say about it that would render cobwebbed wedding cakes entirely moot.” She said it in her silly fake femme fatale voice, smug that she’d won the argument, and ruined the effect by laughing at herself afterwards. Bucky was helplessly, hopelessly charmed by how often Natasha laughed at herself: playing on people’s ridiculous notions about the Black Widow being Mata Hari with guns tickled her sense of humour like few other things.

“We’ve already bought a house together, how much more of a permanent commitment would you want,” said Steve, and stepped in close to put his hands on her hips. The waistband of his swim trunks was showing above his jeans, and his own skin was glistening with freshly-applied sunscreen.

Bucky looked at him. Then he looked down at Natasha, who tilted her head back so her hair brushed his shoulder.

Then, simultaneously, they both looked at Steve, who blinked at them and then took a step back, biting his lip.

“Thought we were goin’ to Coney Island,” he said.

“We are,” said Natasha. “Stop being distracting.”

He laughed. “Oh, sorry.”

+++

Of the three of them, Natasha was the one who had changed in the most outwardly obvious ways. Take the floaty sundress she was wearing, the worn-out summer boots. Underneath there was just the bikini – not even a set of throwing knives – though Bucky couldn’t speak for the contents of her bag. (Or, come to that, for what might be hidden in those soft suede boots.) Bare legs, and bare face, and nothing done to her hair; her shoulders slumped instead of carried straight and back. She had always had possessions she loved, like the Corvette, but most of them were useful in some way: her collection of leather jackets and boots was a collection of both armour and disguises, and the Corvette had been chosen for its speed and manoeuvrability just as much as its design. Now she bought things because she felt like it: books either Steve or Bucky already owned a copy of, silly knick-knacks for the house, art postcards that she liked to stick on the fridge door or use as bookmarks.

Steve – Bucky had always found it hard to track the changes in Steve, and never more so since coming home after DC. How to call someone changed when you only barely remembered the yardstick you were comparing them to? Yet, Bucky didn’t remember Steve lost or hurting or stiff-shouldered with anger. He didn’t remember days when Steve’s showgirl Captain America face was the only one he had to wear; he didn’t remember a time when Steve might have looked at him and said, _I don’t know what makes me happy_. Once Bucky might have claimed that he always knew what made Steve happy, but that was too arrogant for him these days. Perhaps, when they were small, it might have been true, for a little while.

He remembered Steve’s face breaking open with joy at seeing him again, and how it had never really closed back down, not totally. From that first instant on Bucky had read him like a book, and had only slowly come to realise that not everybody did; that, just as Natasha did, Steve gifted his expressions and emotions and hopes and fears to a very select few.

What did they see, Bucky wondered sometimes, when they looked at him?

Steve was looking at him now, faint curve of his lips and a glint in his eye. “You gonna stare at us all the way to Coney Island?” Tucked against his side, Natasha chuckled.

“Sorry,” said Bucky, though he wasn’t.

“You turn your back on people,” Steve said.

“What?”

“What I said the other day, about you being mellow. You never used to turn your back on anyone but us.”

Natasha glanced up. Bucky caught her eye, but he couldn’t hold that gaze for long, and – dammit – he was blushing. She poked him in the knee with the toe of her boot, smiling, and he wrapped his hand around her ankle – oh, yeah, throwing knives. She didn’t look repentant. Bucky leant against the subway window and watched them, smiling, all the way to Coney Island.

+++

On the way back – exhausted, slightly sunburnt, smelling of sea-salt and sand and hot dogs and sunscreen and beer, the subway carriage was crowded; they were standing right in the press of people, listening to the arguments on either side, the delighted whooping of a couple of girls, a small boy yawning his head off, an exasperated conversation between two college students on the merits or otherwise of one of their professors, three high school kids discussing W.B. Yeats in tones that suggested they were all expecting a straight F tomorrow morning, and one guy who had his headphones dialled up so loudly Bucky could have shot him in the pitch dark from five hundred metres away. Much more pleasant to concentrate on Natasha, sandwiched between him and Steve with her nose in a book, trusting them to hold her steady as the subway rattled along, slumping drunkenly from side to side; on the line of Steve’s shoulders and the muscles in his right arm, raised above his head to grasp the metal pole. Bucky was sliding, minute by minute, into a kind of trancelike state, hypnotised by the swaying of the carriage, Tasha’s minute little movements against him, shifting her weight from foot to foot; captivated by Steve’s solemn, tired, happy profile.

If normal was what they had gone to Coney Island for, they had found it with a vengeance. And now they were going home – home to their house, bought and paid for and exclusively theirs. It was a ten-minute walk from the subway to their _home_. The subway station buffeted him, rubbing at his nerves, and he longed for the surreal train ride, the comfort of silence, a safe enclosed space for the three of them alone. Though it was dark the heat lingered on, muggy and sticky and a little stifling, ten times more pleasant than the cold. It wouldn’t hold for much longer; the weather forecast predicted storms by tomorrow evening at the latest. They barely spoke; there was no call to, nothing that needed saying. Nothing at all had needed saying since they had bought the house, not really. The deed of ownership was not eloquent, but it was irrefutable.

Natasha went up the steps ahead of them, bare legs flashing pale in the dimness. Bucky knew both he and Steve were looking at them, at her, and she was well aware of it herself; she glanced at them, over her shoulder, as she unlocked the door, flash of a grin. Then they were inside, and the sweet, happy half-trance shattered when the darkened house closed around him. Was this even happening, was he really here? Was this – by the standards of his childhood – palatial house really his, and how in god’s name dared he dream himself two people to share it with who loved him in spite of all the blood he had shed?

Then Natasha was in his arms, the lithe body hot against his own through his thin t-shirt, his khakis; he stumbled, dizzy, shaken, and her strong hands steadied him as she kissed him, deep and wet. For a moment Bucky barely knew what to do with his hands, let alone his mouth. She pulled back to look at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Bucky said, half a whisper. “Nothing. I just – I love you.” Nothing was wrong. He had to keep reminding himself. Nothing was wrong, he loved them. He might wake up screaming in another minute with needles under his skin and a blank space where his name should be, but he loved them.

“Oh!” Steve said, and he put his arms around Bucky easily, tucked his face into the side of his neck as Natasha held him up. Bucky buried his face in Natasha’s hair, speechless. Eventually – hours later – he croaked, “Are you sure this house is ours?”

“Positive,” Natasha whispered.

“Yes,” Steve said quietly.

They all, in their own different ways, lied to people every day, but they never lied to each other, not anymore. Still, it was another little while before Bucky sighed.

“Not what I was thinking about doin’ on the subway.”

Natasha laughed softly. “There’s not a Yahtzee deadline.” Her voice was rich and warm.

“Thank god,” Bucky said, “or I’d die of sex, probably.”

“On the other hand,” said Steve, “if we don’t set a Yahtzee deadline we’ll still be playing it in five years’ time.” He had a point. The vast majority of the sex they had took place in their bed in the master bedroom and counted towards Yahtzee not at all.

Bucky snorted. “And _still_ won’t have counted off the dining room.”

“It’s counted in your column,” Natasha said, and shimmied her hips a little, still pressed all soft and warm against Bucky’s chest. “It’s just me you haven’t bothered to fuck in there. Singly or together.”

“Been meaning to make that up to you, darling,” Bucky murmured, rubbing his hands over her hips, the floaty chiffon oddly rough under his fingers.

“Mmm.” Steve sighed out against the side of his neck. “Something slow and hard and all drawn out.”

“Pin her down and wreck her,” Bucky agreed.

“God,” said Natasha, and took a step back, holding them both at arms’ length, her smile bright in the dimness. “You really are trying to one-up each other.”

“Are not!”

It might have been more convincing if they hadn’t both said it at once. Natasha laughed at them, and stepped back again, her fingers falling away from Bucky’s ribs with a light, teasing touch. She bit her bottom lip, and her hands bunched in the folds of the skirt.

Suddenly Bucky’s breathing grew a lot quicker. At his back he felt a shudder run right through Steve, all anticipation, and reached for him: left hand gripping his wrist, right sliding around the top of his thigh.

“Good,” Natasha said softly. “Feels too much like being the bone of contention.”

“Centre of attention is what you are,” said Bucky, and licked his lips.

She crooked an eyebrow. “That so?” Her hips were swaying to some rhythm only she could hear, the dark folds of fabric flowing and falling over her thighs. God, he wanted to put his hands on them – get between them. Wanted to kneel and lick her till she was so wet her slick ran down his chin and neck; wanted to trap her against the wall with her legs around his waist and watch his cock slide inside her.

“All the time,” Steve promised, already hoarse. It sent a shiver through Bucky, made his chest hollow and his face hot, torn between pushing Steve down against the stairs and fucking him till his back was raw and he was begging for it, or getting on his knees right here for Steve to fuck his face; they wouldn’t even need to get undressed. And Tasha, Tasha… oh his head was swimming with want. Possibly Steve could read his mind, because he turned his head and kissed Bucky’s neck, faintest brush of stubble, up to his jaw and then under his jaw when Bucky let his head fall sideways and then there was the delicious scrape and sting of teeth; he breathed hard and tightened his grip on Steve and had to close his eyes when those big hands cupped him through his khakis. “There,” Steve murmured, “love feeling it when you get hard for us,” and Bucky shook when Natasha laughed, rich and filthy.

“Kept thinking about it in the subway car,” she said, watching their faces. “Trapped in between you like that. Every so often it really gets to me, you know, how – how _helpless_ I’d be if – you know every trick I even have.”

Bucky doubted that very much indeed, but the low husky voice was too hypnotic to allow interruption or mockery, the faint outline of her body in the gloom making him strain his eyes to see her, all washed-out colours and that sweet little shimmy. He could feel her in his arms, all soft curves and strength; he thought he could smell her, taste her on his tongue, and Steve’s hands, his _hands_. He rocked his hips into them, shameless, and sighed in delight.

“Couldn’t take my mind off it,” she said, “on the subway I mean – all hemmed in, and no one paying attention, and I kept thinking you could flip this stupid dress up and put your hands on me right there in public and no one, but no one, would even know, we were pressed up against each other so tight.”

Steve dropped his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder. He was more than half-hard himself, hips twitching beautifully against Bucky’s ass, so that it was impossible not to picture being thoroughly, but thoroughly, fucked by him… And meanwhile Natasha was shimmying just out of reach, playing with that fucking dress, a low, pleased little hum in her throat, waiting for them, stringing it out.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, and had to swallow several times, his throat was so dry. “Yeah, should’ve done that, darling, just crowd you all up against Steve, put my hands under your skirt and rub you till you came right there, right there with everyone watching, if they only knew. You’d keep still for me so sweet, wouldn’t you? No choice, all hemmed in between us, and shaking all over like you do when you’re wild for it, so we’re all that’s holding you up. You keep clenching round my fingers, baby, hot and smooth and wet, and I wanna taste you on my hand, but everyone would notice. You’d know exactly, _exactly_ , what it’s doing to me, what it does to both of us to watch you come. And you’d hide your face in Steve’s chest like you’re tired or something, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? Not shaking apart on the damn subway with your panties pulled out the way –”

A sudden grin flashed across Natasha’s rapt lovely face. “Who told you I was wearing any?”

Oh that was _cheating_ , and neither of them could bear it. She muffled a little shriek of surprise when they both moved for her at once; half-turned to dodge them but was absolutely not actually trying to get away, though she twisted madly, caught up tight in Bucky’s arms, and bit at Steve’s lips when he kissed her, pushing her thighs apart. Bucky caught a handful of chiffon and dragged it up up up and Steve got his thigh between her legs and cupped her bare cunt with his right hand and said, the words bursting out of him in a startled, strangled voice, “Jesus, you been this wet all the way back home?” and that was it, game over, Bucky’s higher brain functions stood up and gathered their coats and left the building, never to return, while Steve kissed Natasha fierce and hot and possessive.

Bucky touched her too, fingers tangling with Steve’s as they both rubbed at her, made her moan, scratchy pubic hair and hot swollen labia, her slick coating his fingers, and then he brought them to his mouth and licked them clean, and even though she was facing Steve and couldn’t see she cried out for it, for him, wriggling up against him, back and forth between them, trying to grind on Steve’s thigh between her legs.

“No you don’t.” Bucky lifted her easily with his left arm; she laughed out loud as her feet left the floor, just a fraction, just enough to keep her from riding Steve’s thigh. “No you don’t. You wanna get fucked in the dining room, gorgeous? Lay you out across that table, trade you off till you can’t take it anymore, till you’re dizzy with it, wet and filthy and filled up with us and that fucking dress is _ruined_.” He caught at the neckline with his right hand, dragged it down, too desperate to undo the buttons down the front – she wasn’t wearing a bra either, he was about to collapse, he could barely see straight, barely make out Steve’s face right in front of him, what had he ever done to deserve this, deserve them.

“God yeah,” Steve muttered, and he batted Bucky’s fingers away and cupped Natasha’s perfect tits in his hands, caressed her, groped her, tugged at her nipples till she moaned, little hitching breaths and biting her lips, hands scrabbling for purchase on Bucky’s left arm, Steve’s own shoulders, her legs kicking uselessly. “Look at you, Tasha, seriously, all the way home and the only thing between my hands and you was _this_?” His voice rose, disbelieving. “Should have had you on the subway just like Buck was saying. Walk home wet all down your thighs and hope nobody would notice.” He bent his head and suckled on her nipples, first the left then the right, slow and steady, and it was all Bucky could do to hold her up, the view was killing him, and her sweet squirming even more so.

He turned his head and suckled at her earlobe, bit at it gently; she went still for a second, gasping, breathing hard, and Bucky pulled back and put his mouth against the shell of her ear and said gently, “Or hope everybody would notice.”

Her breathing hitched. Steve made an interested little hum somewhere in his throat. Bucky laughed. “Yeah. Put you up on display for all New York to see what they’re missing, for everyone to know you’re mine.”

“Stop,” she said, groaning, “stop talking, Jesus, any time you feel like putting your money where your mouths are,” and cried out sweet and breathless when Steve pushed his hand into her hair and tugged her head back to Bucky’s shoulder to kiss her again, _ah, ah, ah_ , always wildest for it when she let them manhandle her a little, show her she was safe with them. She drew her legs up and wrapped them round Steve’s waist, her back still tight against Bucky’s chest, and for a few long moments they stood there like that, hot and close and dizzy with want.

Then Steve wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up and Bucky darted ahead to sweep the dining room table free of day-to-day debris – an empty coffee mug, a book, three ballpoints, the laptop. Briefly he thought about a cushion for her head, but when Natasha wanted it like this politeness was not a thing she required of either of them, so he left it; snapped the lamp in the corner on so they wouldn’t be in the dark, the shadows lying strangely angled across the room, tilting the familiar place into something dark and new; almost secret.

Steve had hitched her up against him, buried his face in her tits; Bucky leaned against the table, biting at his lower lip and stroking himself, legs spread wide, inviting. What a sight, what a glorious sight: Steve’s fingers pressing deep into Natasha’s ass, the meat of her thighs; the curve of her back, her shoulders flung back, trusting him to hold her to him, the long fingers in Steve’s hair, the way she rolled her hips against him, sighing happily.

“James, where’s James.” She scratched her fingers through Steve’s hair; he lifted her a little higher and tilted his head and made her moan again, beautifully.

Bucky said, “Over here,” and Steve raised his head to look at him, hot-eyed, wild and fierce and beautiful. Bucky crooked his fingers at him, smiling lop-sided. “Hurry it up,” he said.

Steve lowered her to the table like she was made of precious glass, but he also caught her wrists at once and pinned them above her head; Natasha pushed back at him and squirmed about deliciously and said, “Yes, god, yes,” in that low voice that went straight to Bucky’s dick. Bucky stepped up to hold her wrists down for Steve, body-warm metal bruising her skin the way she loved, and god she was still wearing those suede boots; they knocked against the edge of the table when she drew her knees up; _oh_ , she was moaning low and near-incoherent as Steve stroked her legs, _oh, yes, oh please_ , her hair a wild tangle already.

“Shh.” Steve pulled the boots off, leisurely, one by one, and then his fingers caressed the sheath around her ankle. “Think it’s safe to leave this on?”

“Not if you don’t fuck me _now_ ,” Natasha said, and Bucky reached down with his free hand and pulled the dress up again, exposing strong pale thighs, dark red curls; she pressed her knees together and writhed when he caressed her abdomen, the crease of her thighs, rubbed his fingers over her mound, and Steve caught her knees in his hands and pushed her thighs apart. Then he pulled back to watch: Bucky’s fingers combing her pubic hair back, sliding along her cunt. Steve was pressing his hand to his cock, biting his lip, all flushed and sweet and beautiful, as beautiful as the way Natasha was squirming for them, trembling, her hands flexing under Bucky’s, and it was Bucky’s turn now to get his mouth on her tits, the hot skin salty with sweat and seawater, the delicious way she moaned when he suckled on her nipples, her cunt clenching sweet around his fingers, and he left them there when Steve pushed inside her, felt the jolt that went through her body, the way she trembled, cried out as he rubbed his fingers against Steve’s cock. “Oh you’re so – it’s so –“

“Is it too much?” said Steve, breathless but solicitous. “Tell us if it’s too much.” Which was not to say that he let up fucking her.

“It’s not,” said Natasha, “it’s everything, you’re everything, please, please,” and when she arched her back it pushed her tits into Bucky’s face and he took full and shameless advantage, worrying her nipples till she was sobbing.

“Angel,” he said when he took his hand away from her wrists, “just you stay like that, my love,” and tucked two fingers into the neckline of the dress, pulling it down further so he could nuzzle at the soft sensitive underside of her breasts; really he never got enough of them, the silky skin against his mouth, the way her nipples hardened under his tongue or between his fingers, how they fit just perfect into his palms, just made for him to touch; it was a shame to stop nuzzling at her but he had to tell her that, tell her all of that, and watch the look that crossed her face when he did, fix his full attention on the sounds she made, the frankly enthralling noises of Steve fucking her. Bucky slid his fingers out of her cunt, gently gently, and rubbed at her clit in a quick little tease, and when he’d licked his fingers clean he went to kiss the taste of her into Steve’s hot mouth before he returned to those perfect tits.

“Just rip it,” she begged when he tugged at the neckline of the dress again, “I don’t even like this one,” and Steve said, “I fucking adore it,” and fucked her harder, dragging her onto his cock, and Bucky had to put a hand on her chest to keep her flat to the table while he played with her. She was making the most delightful noises, cries and sighs and their names, half-strangled litany of praise and desire.

“Baby,” Bucky murmured, leaning up to kiss her mouth, “you look so good like this, so good.”

“Being debauched on the dining room table,” she whispered. “Oh, Steve, there, there.” And sobbed, biting her lip, turning her face away from Bucky, eyes half closed; he put his fingers on her chin and turned her back.

“Little late to come over all shy, beautiful. You’d lie here and let us fuck you over and over for as long as we wanted, wouldn’t you, no matter how long it took, as long as one of us wanted it you’d spread your legs and let us have it.” He kissed her again; she bit at his lips and sucked on his tongue and dammit, he was the one shaking; her breathing filled his ears, her hoarse breath and the slap of her skin against Steve’s, and he pressed his thighs into the edge of the dining room table hard to get a little perspective back, a little distraction, as Natasha moaned into his mouth.

“God, listen to you,” Steve said harshly. “Think that’s a yes? I think that’s a yes. I think you’d love it too.”

“Not me, sweetheart,” said Bucky, kissed Natasha’s nose, her chin. “Now tie _you_ up for us all pretty and leave you to be used –”

Natasha’s soft hips would be bruised by the time they were done here, and there was no part of Bucky that felt bad about it, not when she wrapped her legs around Steve’s waist and cried out like that, oh no. Tomorrow morning he would fit his hands to the prints on her skin and watch her eyes darken, her body go pliant; she loved it when one of them marked her, and it made possessiveness unfold hotly in his chest. She squirmed a hand out from underneath his fingers and tangled it in his hair, tugging fiercely. “You – get up here, James, want to suck your cock –”

Generally speaking, around these parts, what Nat wanted, she got.

Hot and soft and wet, her throat constricting around him, the vibrations of her moans shaking him whenever Steve drew them out of her; he was never going to be able to eat off this table again, never. Bucky could barely stand to look at her blissed-out face, her eyes closed, her hands lax above her head, fingers twitching when Steve thrust in just so; she was out of it now, strung out beautifully in that sweet place after you’d pushed past the first desperate need to come and just lived in pleasure.

Steve was no different; he was biting his mouth red and swollen, skin shining with sweat; Natasha’s fingers had wreaked havoc in his hair, and the steady sinuous movement of his body was captivating, the roll of his hips and the flex of the muscles in his arms when he changed his grip on Natasha’s hips or dragged her close to him. Everything was so loud: the smack of their skin and their harsh breathing and the obscene wet noises of them fucking her – the heavy pounding of his own heart in his ears, and god, god, he – Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard, fighting for some control back, but Tasha was sneakier than that, and too fond of winning: he felt her hands on him, gentle, pushing under the hem of the t-shirt that he’d forgotten he was still wearing, rubbing over his skin; he opened his eyes to see her looking up at him, dreamy, as her fingers wrapped around the inch or two of his cock that she couldn’t take in, and then she slid her hand down to play with his balls and, well. Ecstasy ran hot along his spine and blanked his mind for long sweet seconds, and he had to brace himself with one hand on the table top beside Natasha’s head.

“God almighty,” said Steve harshly. “God al-fucking-mighty.”

“Yeah. Oh Nat.” He straightened up, pulling away from Tasha gently; she gasped and sighed, pulling in air, and wiped at her wet mouth with shaking fingers till he held her gently still and kissed his own come from her lips.

Steve was close now, shaking, moaning, and Bucky grinned at Natasha, smoothing her hair back, rubbed their noses together before he kissed her again, sweet and tender as he knew how, her eyes were hooded, unseeing, her face flushed, her mouth swollen; nearly there, nearly, and enjoying it so much. “Give it up, darling,” he murmured, “don’t be selfish, let us see. Please. Please, Tasha…”

“Oh,” she breathed, “oh, oh, please –”

“Yeah, sweetheart, just like that.” Steve was groaning too, quick staccato noises in time with his thrusts; Bucky flung a hand out behind him, groping for him, and pulled him close over Natasha’s body, dragging Steve up so that he braced a knee on the table edge and pushed Natasha’s legs apart even farther and came biting down on Bucky’s lower lip, utterly beautiful in his pleasure.

A mess, an utter mess. Natasha was laughing softly, which meant she didn’t mind she had two supersoldiers sprawled across her; Bucky shifted, uncomfortable, the table hot and sticky with sweat underneath him, his shirt clinging unpleasantly, nose full of the smell of come and sweat. Finally Steve staggered upright, sighing, groaned when he slid out of Natasha – he’d barely gone soft. Suddenly Bucky realised that Steve hadn’t blushed once all night.

“OK?” he said, working moisture into his throat.

“Of course,” Natasha sighed.

“Here.” Steve dragged a chair out and fell into it, groaning. “Oh my god.” His face was bright with joy and love. “Entirely normal day.”

Bucky snorted. Steve beckoned to him; he went, curious, and got stripped for his trouble, Steve’s hands a little unsteady, pulling his shirt up, urging him to step out of boxers and pants, bunched round his thighs. Bucky bent over him, let Steve hold him.

“Yahtzee was such a good idea,” Steve said after a moment.

“Don’t be smug,” Bucky said.

“Why not? I’ve earned it.” Steve grinned.

“I’ve gone mellow, he says. Me.”

“It’s easy now,” Steve said, more quietly, though Bucky was sure Natasha could hear. “It’s easy. Here, with you.”

Bucky sighed, tension sliding out of all his muscles. “Yeah.” And Natasha’s hands on his back, quite suddenly, caressing him from shoulders to hips; then his ass too. She pressed close and kissed his scars, the seam of his left shoulder. Bucky shuddered, sucked in breath sharply when her wet fingers rubbed at his asshole, and for long dizzy hours he rocked back and forth between them, Natasha’s fingers, Steve’s hands on his waist holding him up, the brush of his hair against Bucky’s chest when Steve bent his head to suck his cock, tight and hot around him… eventually Steve reached around to help Natasha, and when she spit on her fingers – or Steve’s? – to make them wetter Bucky’s knees nearly gave out. He couldn’t tell how many fingers were in him, or whose, he didn’t know how long he’d been standing here while they opened him up, shared him between them. The room, the world, was spinning, unreal. Only their touch…

“God,” he said, ragged. “What –”

“Turn around,” Natasha said, wicked.

“Jesus wept.” Steve had to turn him round by the hips. Thank god the chair was sturdy. Bucky caught the edges of the seat and straddled Steve’s thighs and – it wasn’t gonna work – Steve wrapped one hot arm around his hips and Christ yes it was gonna work, his cock nudging at Bucky’s hole, and yes, yes, yes, in him, in him now. He closed his eyes and sank down, groaning, Steve wet with Natasha’s slick and his own come and Bucky – probably opened up with the same. The blood was pounding hotly in his face. Steve’s cock stretching him was a delicious burn, an ache nearly too much that undid him completely; sinking down he felt Steve’s hands on his chest, urging him back, laying him out across Steve’s body for Tasha to admire, and she did, he could see it in her face, hungry, greedy. She was still wearing that damn dress, and when Bucky was finally impaled on Steve’s cock and was about ready to start begging for Steve to move she reached up to the twisted neckline and began, slowly, one by one, to undo the buttons.

“Sadist,” he said, watching her expose her breasts, the red marks of his mouth and of Steve’s, her nipples peaked and puffy.

“Shh.” She was laughing. “Might as well do the thing properly.”

“If you do this to me now there’s no way I’m fucking Steve after.” Bucky clenched around him, tried to shift, but Steve held him tight and kissed his shoulder.

“You sure? Cause I want it. Nat’ll sit on my face. Sprawl out on the floor, spread my legs, you’d get there again pretty quick... you know you would.”

“Yes,” Bucky said, dazed and dizzy. Natasha undid the last stupid button and straightened up; the dress fell away like a robe, exposing her to both of them, the lamplight golden on her flushed, sweaty skin, her pubic hair wet. Bucky reached out for her; she shook the dress off her shoulders and came close, smiling slow and secretive.

“It’s never enough, with you,” she said. “It’ll never be enough. I thought it was bad when we first got together but that was nothing. That was a dry spell.” Steve planted his feet more firmly on the floor; Bucky shifted up to hold her, one of her hands on his shoulder, the other on Steve’s. Deliberately: this was Natasha. “I can do anything and everything I can think of to want, with you.” She sounded wondering. Bucky didn’t even know if she was still talking about sex. He was aching and dizzy and tense with desire; he would have to hold her or she would probably fall off. His hands against her slender hips looked huge and rough and possessive. Steve’s hands on him looked the same, he thought suddenly. Strange that he’d never noticed that before.

“Someone’s gonna end up with a concussion from this,” he said, trying for a joke, for normalcy, for flippant comfort, for –

Natasha kissed him, sweet and soft and slow. Then she bit his lip. “Shhhh. I’m busy here.” God, her fingers on him – how wet she was and how hot and soft and welcoming – she rubbed his cock against her slit teasingly, and Bucky made a _noise_ that – Steve shifted his hips and the rub of his cock inside and Natasha’s body just above were – he had to close his eyes, shaking, and as she sank down onto his cock he found himself remembering that day he’d watched them fuck, weeks ago, Natasha’s hands on Steve’s throat and the pure pleasure they’d taken in one another. And now they were sharing him between them, eager and possessive, until Bucky’s mind was blank with pleasure, until he was a shaking, oversensitive mess, until he’d melted into them utterly, no separations, never again.

+++

Honestly, it was no wonder they were having so much sex; Bucky couldn’t walk into a damn room in this house without wondering what Steve and Natasha might have done in here already, without picturing them pressed against walls or curled in armchairs or ravishing each other on the floor with half their clothes still on. Bucky was going _out of his mind_ , and he was reasonably sure that there was no reason to because Steve and Tasha had almost certainly not had that much sex without him; no human beings in the history of the world could possibly be horny enough to have that much sex, full stop.

Steve had accused him of acting mellow, but that wasn’t how he felt. If anything he felt more tense than ever: vulnerable, exposed, his nerves and emotions raw and new, as if the house were paring him down to the very essence of himself.

My house, he thought. My house, my home, my life. Natasha, who wandered around the house unarmed in thin dresses and shorts that showed her skin, who touched him constantly and with open affection, initiating a kiss or an embrace, sitting in his lap at the table, playing with his hair whenever she could. Steve, who laughed these days – laughed as Bucky could not ever remember Steve laughing, not even as children, and who he caught sitting silently in the window seat on the second floor landing sometimes, looking out at the street and smiling, a book unread in his hands and peace in his face.

+++

Yahtzee was an excellent distraction. A challenge was a challenge, and Bucky was no more capable of turning them down than Steve was, not really. When the memory of the abuses the dining room table had suffered after the Coney Island trip had stopped making everyone blush and squirm when they walked into the room Bucky decided it was time to cross off another column.

Natasha sighed and shivered and put her hands in her hair when he fitted his hands to her waist, her hips rocking over him lazily, and he planted his left foot on the floor and sighed when she leaned over him, her face tucked into his neck, her knees by his hips. Her breath smelt of the cider they had been drinking, and the hot soft grip of her body around his cock, the little noises she was making, the weight of her on him and the slide of her skin all across his own… he wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tight to his chest, and tilted his chin up to the ceiling, eyes half-closed, groaning softly.

“Love you,” she whispered against his throat, her hands coming up to rest on his biceps. “Love you so much, my darling… missed you every day. Every day.”

“Don’t,” Bucky muttered, incoherent, “don’t, sweetheart, here now, always, always…”

“Yes,” she said, “yes, yes, you’re mine,” and laughed when a shudder went through him, when he clenched his hands against her back trying not to come too soon. “Not everything’s about me, love, c’mon, c’mon…” And petted him sweetly through an orgasm that left him languid and shaking, hiding his wet face in her shoulder. “Shh. I have you.” Her voice was tight with triumph. “I have you.” She kissed his temple, his ear, the side of his face. “Steve was right… are you OK?”

“Yeah.” He kissed her collarbone, her jaw. “Yeah, I just.” Shook his head. She wiped his face with her thumbs, gently. Steve was right: he had gone mellow, or something – raw, exposed, dizzy. “I love you, that’s all. You make me happy.” Her hair had grown enough that it was falling into his face, and when she laughed the soft strands tickled his cheek and nose.

“I make you happy. You built me a ballet room but I make you happy –” She broke off to bury her face in the crook of his neck again, trembling; delayed orgasm had nothing to do with it.

After a few minutes, Bucky sighed. “Come here,” he murmured, though she’d gone nowhere, stroking his hands down her back slow and purposeful. “Come here, let me – let me take care of you…”

She chuckled wetly, squirming above him; round two was on the cards, no problem. He shivered, mouthing at her neck and shoulders, running his hands up her back and down again, marvelling over the soft expanse of her skin, tracing the curves of muscle, the knobs of her spine. “Cannot get enough of touching you.” She was beautiful and he was hers and it was a privilege to be given this, so much so that even now sometimes he still didn’t believe it had happened.

“Love your hands on me,” Natasha whispered to him. “I know, I always know it’s you. You could blindfold me and spin me around in Grand Central Station at rush hour and I would always know when you touch me.”

“Kind of a turn-on, huh.” Bucky rocked his hips up into her gently, slow, tender: no need to rush, no need at all. He palmed her ass, stroked her thighs, then put his arms around her back again, feeling her breathing against him, imagined he could feel her heartbeat against his own.

“You are very vain,” she said, turning her head to kiss his jaw. “And I love it, like I love everything about you. Except possibly your weird Forties hang-ups about baseball,” she added brightly, and Bucky started laughing; but she bit his lip gently, worried at it. “Want to come, James, make me come on your cock; you’re mine, my darling, you always will be, always, _always_.”

Always. Always.

+++

Maybe it was just, you know, Scotland.

Training exercises, not far from Monty’s ancestral pile (or one of, at any rate), late ’43, weeks after that fateful night in the pub in London, hedged in on all sides by the decisions he’d made, irreversibly set on the course he had built for himself: Bucky had spent a night off in the tiny village pub, apparently set on drinking himself to death, and had yelled at Steve through a blinding hangover the next morning for an hour straight for stupidity and selfishness and arrogant pride. When they’d come out of the room afterwards Philips had given him a sarcastic hand of applause and set him to the worst jobs he could find to do for being a drunken layabout who disgraced the proud traditions of the US Army.

Delayed reactions kind of a thing.

+++

“I think,” said Steve, “we should take up gardening.”

“I think you should fuck me,” said Bucky, exasperated. “Seriously, what does a guy have to do around these parts -?”

“Hold still,” said Steve cheerfully, and twisted his fingers inside Bucky, luxuriously slow, rubbing at his prostate over and over. Bucky sighed, falling back against the floor, hands flung out to either side; he had to close his eyes for a moment against Steve’s flushed face above him, the way he was biting on that plush bottom lip, the hooded eyes and the little wrinkle between his eyebrows that Bucky always wanted to kiss as soon as he saw it.

“Love watching you like this,” Steve murmured. “Love how you open up for it, how your whole body goes all – all pliant for me. Love how it makes you smile…”

Bucky was grinning like an idiot at just that exact second. He tried to rein it in, but it wasn’t possible, so whatever. “All that, and you’re thinking about gardening.”

“The back yard is a mess,” Steve said solemnly.

“Gonna _kill_ you,” Bucky promised. “No I won’t, never hear the end of it from our mothers, but you’ll never get laid again, never –“

“Very convincing, Lysistrata,” said Steve. “What with how you’re moaning for it.”

God help him, Bucky was. Breathless, he said, “I love – I _love_ getting fingered.”

“You’re a mess,” Steve said, and bent over to lick at the head of Bucky’s wet cock, the pre-come on his belly. “A mess.” Probably he was, Jesus wept, like it was a problem, being sodomised by your boyfriend on the floor of the second floor bathroom in your own home. Bucky shuddered helplessly.

“OK?” Steve said, and kissed his hip.

“Yes, you jackass, I’m all right, I’m –” But Steve was rubbing his prostate again, and wrapped a hand around his cock besides, and Bucky writhed against the cool tile floor and cursed him and begged him and swore he loved him as Steve eased him off that edge again, back down to Earth a ways.

“The thing is,” said Steve, and oh god what was that voice, this was not a time for any kind of serious conversation, “that sometimes it’s like wrecking you is the only way to get a straight answer –”

“What, do you think you’re slipping me a Mickey,” said Bucky, “quit taking advantage of my impaired mental state.”

That made Steve laugh so much he almost stopped working him over entirely, which was clearly unacceptable. Bucky clenched around his fingers pointedly, and when that didn’t work, grabbed a handful of his hair. “Just ask already.”

“Nat said you were a little freaked out the other day,” said Steve bluntly.

“Not freaked out,” Bucky said – the absolute truth.

Steve knew him. Steve had always known him. They read each other by instinct, even if sometimes they each didn’t like what they saw. “Is it like Scotland?”

Bucky stuck his tongue out at him. “Nothing like Scotland.”

“Exactly like Scotland,” Steve decided. “You’d say something, wouldn’t you, if – if you needed – something.”

“I need you to fuck me?” Bucky offered, puzzled.

Steve groaned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you think I could possibly need,” said Bucky. “We bought a house together.”

Steve stared at him for a second, big hot fingers stilled inside him, eyes bright and face solemn. Then he said quietly, “I love you.”

Bucky blinked. Then he said, “I know, love. You’re – this.” He sighed, languid, delighted, happy. “You’re everything.”

Steve smiled, slow and unguarded. When was Steve ever unguarded? All the time, in this house, with Bucky, with Natasha. He bent over to kiss Bucky, hot and wet and deep, and Bucky gripped his hair and kissed him back, trembling, as Steve’s fingers curled just right inside him, rubbed deliciously over his prostate.

“If you’d ever told me back home that I’d need you like this…”  Steve was breathless, his voice a low mutter. “But I do, god help me.” He closed his eyes, crooked his fingers just right, kissed along Bucky’s jaw and throat and collarbones. “I love you. I love you.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, ragged. “Steve – gonna –”

“Yes,” said Steve. “I want it – want to see – want to put that look on your face every day for the rest of our lives…”

“You can,” Bucky promised, delirious, rolling his hips up into the touch of those clever fingers, flushed and hot all over, clenching his fists against the floor, close, close, close. “You can you will I want you to, Steve, Steve –” For a moment his conscious mind whited out; the world was muted, distant, unimportant; his body was everything and it was Steve’s – “In me,” he said, punch-drunk. “In me, want you, come on, fuck me…”

Steve pulled his fingers out of Bucky and caught his thighs to steady himself as he climbed between them; then he spread his knees and lifted Bucky’s hips into his lap and pushed inside him, biting his lip, beautiful flush high on his cheekbones, his cock was a thick hot weight that split Bucky open, beautifully, perfectly.

“Yeah.” He reached between them to grip Steve’s hips, fingers digging urgently into those perfect curves. “Yeah, baby, c’mon, move, gimme it, want it so bad, wanna feel you for a week.” He drew a breath, harsh and shaky; Steve pitched forwards over him, their faces close together, close enough to kiss if they’d had the coordination. “Always want you.”

“So glad,” Steve said, harsh himself. “So glad that – never would’ve thought –”

“Me either. Never, never.” Bucky craned up, summoned all his concentration to kiss him clumsily, trading panting breaths, their noses bumping. Christ this was so, so good: he was limp and trembling and well on his way to being hard again, pleasure like fire in his veins as Steve moved inside him.

“Never,” said Steve, “never giving this up. _Never_.”

Bucky believed him.

+++

Honestly, it was no wonder they were having so much sex. Steve’s hands on him healed wounds he didn’t know he’d torn into himself, gentled his raw nerves and helped him settle back inside his own skin; Natasha’s kisses re-made him from the ground up, no longer her Soldier, or Sergeant Barnes, or the man without a memory who’d sometimes called himself Bucky and usually called himself nothing at all, but himself.

+++

Summer dragged on, the first summer they would spend in their house: Bucky was glad they had moved in in spring, so that his first memories of his home were not associated with grey days and cold and angry winds rattling the window panes. Summer dragged on, and they made the house more their own day by day: scratched the floorboards, broke a glass, swapped pictures around, re-arranged a bookshelf, changed the drapes in the living room, argued over whether to have their bed against the right hand or left hand wall of their bedroom. Summer dragged on, endlessly, long hot days and sultry nights, watching the world turn and loving one another.

+++

“You don’t really have a chart, do you,” Bucky said lazily one early September afternoon. The slants of sunlight on the attic rafters were blinding him a little; he had an armful of pretty redhead on his right, and a gorgeous blond was dozing with his head on Bucky’s chest, and the whole house – his house, their house – was silent and still below them, filled with their possessions, their lives. He wanted for nothing; he needed nothing; he was, in this moment, perfectly, shatteringly happy.

“Of course I have a chart,” said Natasha, and reached down to play with Steve’s hair. “Unlike some national icons I could name, I have organisational skills.”

“Your national icons, though,” Steve mumbled.

“Only,” said Bucky, petting him, “only it’s the second time we’ve struck off the attic in the threesome column. I’m sure it is.”

Steve started to laugh. “What do you know, your memory’s all over the place.”

But Natasha huffed, her breath ghosting hot across Bucky’s skin. “I like to think of the chart as a guideline. A collection of suggestions.”

“But then how will we know who won?" Steve said innocently.

Natasha groaned at him and laughed, poking at shoulder with her fingernail to punish him while he snickered. Bucky sighed, closing his eyes against the light on the ceiling, and said blithely, “I think we should take up gardening.”

+++

+++

+++

The winter was as cold and wet as Bucky had expected. Just about everyone he knew – from Stark on up to people like Sam and Sharon and even Thor, the fucker – spent the first weeks of December making _Game of Thrones_ jokes at him; he didn’t have the heart to tell them that he’d read the books, and put on an expression of bemused puzzlement every time instead.

Steve and Tasha were on to him, of course, but they never said anything. In the run up to Christmas, they fought companionably and fondly about the decorations, the food, acceptable tree heights, the heinousness of Natasha’s not-really-joking proposition that they hire someone to decorate for them, their intent or otherwise to attend the Stark Industries Christmas party, the number of days for which they were prepared to put up any and all of Bucky’s nieces who were in town for the holiday season (too many for their house to hold in any case), and the likelihood of the Bartons coming to stay on top of that. They discovered that one great advantage of the size of the house was that they were not in danger of running out of places to hide each other’s presents, and Bucky and Steve made a game of doing all the Christmas things they had done as kids, transposed to the 21st century. Often an ever-changing selection of Bucky’s nieces and nephews tagged along; always Natasha came with them, quiet and solemn and curious, as if she were taking notes, and Bucky thought that maybe she was, in a way. The rest of their lives…

Finally, a few days before Christmas, it snowed.

“Hell no,” Natasha said grumpily, and went straight back to bed.

“I didn’t know you hated it so much,” said Steve, wrapping himself around her; Bucky, standing by the window, had a perfect view of Natasha’s face, and could see the little smile she got as she settled against him, soaking in all that lovely body heat, basking in that strong embrace.

“I despise it,” she said.

“That makes three of us.” Steve was laughing.

“I don’t mind it,” said Bucky, faintly surprised; he’d let the drapes drop over the depressing view and was kneeling by the fireplace now, building it up.

Natasha snorted.

“Bullshit,” said Steve.

“I don’t,” said Bucky. “It’s just weather, you know, it – it.” He turned a log over in his hands, frowning.

“You hate it, love,” Natasha said. “You’ve always hated it. We’ve both always hated it. Don’t you remember -?”

She didn’t seem upset that he didn’t, whatever it was, just gentle, loving, but when he got the fire lit and a merry little blaze going he began to, a little. Some safe house – no central heating – a fireplace, like this one, and how strange it had been to peel off their wet uniforms and fit their bodies together under the blankets, soft skin and heat. _I’m only ever warm when I’m with you_. Had he said it to her or had she said it to him?

“Bucky,” Steve said. “Forget the fire – come back to bed.”

Bucky turned – he was kneeling up, the covers at his knees, smiling, the black boxers a sharp contrast to the tanned skin, gold in the growing light of the fire. Seventy years ago weather like this would have had him looking pinched, narrowed, chapped – if anyone could bristle defensively at the very weather it was Steve Rogers. Natasha was propped on her elbows, the shirt she wore to bed (an old one of Steve’s) half-unbuttoned and showing the sweet curve of her breasts.

Bucky Barnes hated the cold. It made everything harder: it made Aunt Sarah cough in ways that terrified Steve right up until she died, it made his mother worry about everyone she loved, anxious and grim, it made his father’s shrapnel-ridden hip ache, giving him a limp and a pained, sharp-edged smile, it made Steve miserable, it made his sisters catch colds that Bucky nursed them through year after year. Icy draughts through badly-glazed windows and creaking floorboards, and the long unchanging grey chill of the labour camp at Azzano, where every day was damp and mouldy and caught in a kind of permanent February: everything was dead, and there was no chance of green leaves or sunshine or laughter ever again. Bucky hated the cold.

“You’re right,” he said, “I hate it. I fucking –” He stopped. The fire was warm on his left side, now. “I hate it.” Chest of drawers, a low bookshelf, the door, closed, leading onto the landing, the staircase, the fucking Monet prints, the dim hall, the wide bright living room with its ivy-hung bay window, the dining room, the kitchen his mother would have loved, the walls lined with bookshelves, the gramophone, the laptop on the coffee table, their boots and coats by the front door, the French windows into the back yard. His bedroom, his house, his loves. There wasn’t anyone here to pretend to, no reasons imaginable to soldier on through it. “I really really hate it.” It felt like a brand new discovery. A shiver chased across his skin.

“Come back to bed,” Steve repeated, softly now.

“Turn the phones off,” Natasha said. “We’re not leaving the house today unless it’s aliens again.”

“Even _then_ ,” said Steve, “if they’re after Jersey they can have it,” and Bucky came back to bed, laughing, and let them drag him down between them and wrap themselves around him, safe and warm and loved.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
